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Raje faces people’s anger as her Yatra begins

JAIPUR: Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has hit the Shekhawati trail to tour the districts of Sikar, Churu and Jhunjhunu to re-create her hugely successful “Parivartan yatra” of the pre-2003 election period in Rajasthan. In the first leg of a State-level mass contact programme named “Vijay Sankalp Yatra” (roughly translated as “Resolute march for victory”) Ms. Raje is addressing public meetings coinciding with official functions.

Despite the general perception here that “jyotisihis” (astrologers) must have advised her to start from there, the first meeting at Neem Ka Thana town in Sikar district on Wednesday indicated some starting trouble for the march as Ms. Raje faced the wrath of people over the unfulfilled promise to locate a new district headquarter there. A visibly irritated Ms. Raje, who had to stop her speech in between to contain the protest, reacted angrily to the demand pointing out that pressure tactics would not work.

The demand for Neem Ka Thana district has been there from the time when Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was Chief Minister of the State though this demand was kept aside after at least three towns in the neighbourhood such as Behror, Kotputli and Shahpura too made similar claims. The present BJP Government played safe creating only one new district recently -- in the tribal-dominated Pratapgarh.

Khandela, the second destination for Ms. Raje after Neem Ka Thana, too was not a pleasant experience as workers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demonstrated in front of her waving red flags protesting against “neglect of farmers affected by frost”.

The Chief Minister addressed a rally at Sikar after inaugurating a trauma hospital, martyrs’ memorial and Ambedkar Hostel.

“I am here to ask for another five years,” said Ms. Raje repeating the plea she had made the previous day to the Sikar crowd, while addressing journalists at Salaasar in Churu district on Thursday. In Sardarshahar in Churu district she dedicated the Hanumangarh-Rattnagarh mega highway project.

“This is blatant misuse of public money for political gains,” said Amra Ram, CPI (M) MLA from the area, talking to The Hindu on phone from Sikar. “In the Parivartan Yatra she was successful in drawing crowds due to the prevailing public resentment against the then Congress Government. This time no such response is forthcoming. Moreover, there is opposition to her programmes and the public resentment would intensify in the coming days,” Mr. Ram predicted.

The BJP could not put up a united front in the first phase of the Yatra as senior Cabinet Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari, who hails from the region, did not accompany her to any of the meetings.

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