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Gehlot expresses concern over Chandraswami’s Raje residence visit

Chandraswami

JAIPUR: Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot has expressed concern over the recent visits of the controversial godman Chandraswami to the official residence of the Rajasthan Chief Minister. Mr.Gehlot asked Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to come clean on the “business” Chandra swami had at her place.

Talking to newspersons here over the weekend Mr.Gehlot said Chandraswami was a suspect in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and his activities in the past had remained both “suspicious and controversial”. “It is deplorable on the part of the Chief Minister to host such a person at her official residence,” he pointed referring to the reported visits of the Swami, who originally hails from Alwar in Rajasthan to Ms.Raje’s Civil Lines residence.

“Whatever the antics the swami had resorted to at the residence of Ms. Raje, the Congress is all set to come back to power in Rajasthan,” Mr.Gehlot said referring to the reports that Chandraswami had held some “tantrik” rituals at her place for an election victory. “It is a corrupt and inefficient Government here which is not going to come back after the elections,” he asserted.

Alleging a “corrupting influence” the Bharatiya Janata Party Government had on the higher bureaucracy here Mr.Gehlot warned the Civil Servants in the State not to succumb to the “pressures of a Government on the throes of death”. “The senior bureaucrats who are acting at the behest of the corrupt Government would be made answerable by the next Government,” he warned. “The next Government won’t spare them”.

Mr.Gehlot said it was for the Chief Secretary to keep a check on the corruption involving senior bureaucracy. “I am not saying that all the senior bureaucrats are corrupt. But the bureaucracy is made increasingly vulnerable to the pressures from those in power. Some of the are hand in glove with the Ministers but some others are obliging them out of fear,” he observed. “This Government has corrupted the bureaucracy in the State as never before”.

Referring to the recent appeal by senior BJP leader Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi to “defeat the criminals, the corrupt and those with no character” in the next elections, Mr.Gehlot said the comments were another assault on the Chief Minister by her critic in her party.

“Mr.Chaturvedi’s observations appear to be a sequel to the corruption charges levelled by another senior BJP leader Kailash Meghwal against her Government in the presence of the party chief Rajnath Singh”, he observed. The senior BJP leaders, Jaswant Singh Raghuveer Singh Kaushal and Ministers in the Raje Cabinet, Ghanshyam Tiwari and Narpat Singh Rajvi too had made similar charges, Mr.Gehlot pointed out.

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