Why no action against Raje govt for graft: Sachin Pilot’s fresh salvo at Ashok Gehlot

Jaipur: Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Thursday fired a fresh salvo at Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot as he sought to know why no action was taken by the state government against the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime for alleged corruption.

It was for the fourth day in a row that the former deputy chief minister attacked his own party-led government, amid his ongoing power tussle with Gehlot. Earlier, he cornered the state government over a string of paper leak cases and political appointments of bureaucrats instead of party workers.

Pilot alleged that when he was the state party chief from 2013 to 2018 and the Congress was in the opposition in the state, the party had exposed the corrupt activities of the then BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje. However, no action has been taken against the BJP leaders by the present Congress government, he said.

He said that he hoped the present government takes action against the BJP leaders in the remaining 11 months of the Congress rule. Assembly elections in the state are due to be held in December later this year.

“I do not want to work with vendetta but we have to take action against those whose corruption was exposed by us. We had constantly challenged the then Raje government and said we will expose their wrong deeds and corruption. We had promised that after coming to power, an investigation into the scams will be done and the guilty will be punished so that the trust of people in the system is maintained,” he told a gathering at the Kisan Sammelan in Sadri area of Pali district.

“Four years of the government have passed and just 11 months are left, I hope that action will be taken,” he said.

The Congress leader also spoke about how BJP leaders at the Centre allegedly levelled false charges against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, lodged cases against them, got them summoned by the Enforcement Directorate and were insulted – in a reference to the National Herald case.

“Why does the Congress government in Rajasthan not take action against the BJP leaders who were involved in corruption?” he said.

A senior MLA of Gehlot camp said, on condition of anonymity, that “working with political vendetta will give edge to the BJP”. “The way the Congress government is working against corruption, probably no state in the country is doing that,” he said, adding that “if any leader has issues, it should be addressed to the chief minister or the party high command, but making statements in public damages the party.”

Both Pilot and Gehlot have been locked in a tussle since the party came to power in the state in December 2018.

In the last three days, Pilot attacked the state government over repeated incidents of paper leaks in the state and political appointments of retired bureaucrats instead of party workers as he addressed similar farmers’ rallies in Nagaur, Hanumangarh and Jhunjhunu in Shekhawati region.

On Pilot’s attack on the state government, BJP MLA and spokesperson Ram Lal Sharma said the Congress leaders are afraid of losing ground in the state and are resorting to such speeches.

“If they are this worried about the youngsters, paper leak and political appointments of the bureaucrats… and aren’t being heard by their party, then they should resign. They are just trying to gather sympathy by being in the party,” he said, in an apparent reference to Pilot.