Revision as of 10:38, 24 February 2018

Assembly building

Rajasthan MLAs fear assembly is 'haunted'

February 23, 2018: The Times of India

HIGHLIGHTS:

Legislators in Rajasthan believe that the House never retains its maximum strength of 200 members for long.

They have blamed the‘evil spirits’ for member resignations, arrests and untimely death.

Some of the lawmakers have even shared their fears with CM Raje & urged her to call priests to pacify the ‘buri aatma’.

Call it superstition or the fear of death. Legislators in the state are beginning to suspect that the Rajasthan assembly is haunted by spirits. The lawmakers believe that the House never retains its maximum strength of 200 members for long, either because one or the other member resigns, goes to jail or has an untimely death. And they blame it on ‘evil spirits’.

In fact, some of them have even shared their fears with chief minister Vasundhara Raje and urged her to call priests or clerics to pacify the ‘buri aatma’. A priest was spotted performing rituals near the assembly’s entrance on Thursday.

The demise of sitting BJP MLA from Singh Chouhan on Tuesday night has revived the belief and the fears of legislators who have been demanding measures to control the supernatural.

Last year, BJP MLA from Mandalgarh Kirti Kumari had succumbed to swine flu. Before that, BSP MLA B L Kushwah was jailed for murder. In the last assembly, Congress MLAs Mahipal Maderna, Malkhan Singh Bishnoi and Babu Lal Nagar were jailed on charges like murder and rape.

And yet, the superstitious MLAs fear all this is happening because the assembly building has been built by covering part of a cremation ground. Barely 200 metres from the building there still stands the Lal Kothi Moksh Dham (cremation ground).

The present assembly building, which is spread over nearly 17 acres and located close to the SMS Stadium, was built between November 1994 and March 2001. Before that, the state assembly was housed in the old city’s Sawai Man Singh Town Hall that was built around 1884.

BJP MLA from Nagaur Habibur Rahman said, “The land over which the new building has been built was earlier used as a graveyard or for cremation and garbage ground where god knows what all used to be dumped. People must have buried bodies of children too here. Evil spirits usually roam around such places.”

The five-term MLA, who has been a minister too, said he was part of the committee that surveyed the land when the then CM Bhairon Singh Shekhawat sanctioned Rs 5 crore to build the new assembly building here. “To address my concerns about it being a graveyard/cremation land, they got some temples built in the vicinity,” Rahman said.

“When madam (Raje) asked us yesterday (Wednesday) why is this happening (untimely deaths of Chouhan and Kumari), I told her about this place’s past. I suggested that ‘yajna’ be performed or a ‘maulana’ be called to purify the place. It is in our culture. If we build at some wrong place, we can be freed through prayers and offerings,” he added.

Government chief whip Kalu Lal Gurjar said, “It’s true this assembly building has not had a full strength of 200 members for long. The untimely deaths of MLAs Chouhan and Kumari have worried us and we cannot help but think about the graveyard/cremation ground that was here. I believe that spirits can do bad. We spoke to the CM and she has assured us to do something about it.”

Recognising caste

Allotting land to caste groups

Ajaysingh Ugras, Raje revives Cong policy, to allot land on caste lines, October 12, 2017: The Times of India

 With assembly elections in Rajasthan just about a year away , the Vasundhra Raje government has cleared the proposal to allot land to various castes and communities at concessional rates. These allotments were initially made by the Congress government in 2013 just ahead of the last assembly elections but were cancelled by the state government under Raje saying they were “misuse of public land“.

The Congress government had allotted 61 plots of land in various cities in the state for community purposes at just five 5% of the land cost. The BJP government, however, said it was yet to decide the rate at which the land will be re-allotted.

The current state cabinet's decision to take a Uturn on its earlier stand and give a green signal for caste-based land allotment has come close on the heels of giving nod to the luxury residential complex, Palacia, after cancelling it initially.

“The cabinet has decided to allot land to various castes and communities.We have been receiving demands from these sections for a long time,“ urban development and housing (UDH) minister Shrichand Kriplani said.

A senior UDF official said, of 61 allotments, most (35) will be made in Kota district. “We will provide land to various organisations at six locations in Jaipur,“ he said.

2018

By-elections: BJP lost 12-21% of vote share

Bhanupratap Singh, In Raj, BJP lost 12-21% of vote share, February 3, 2018: The Times of India

The fall in BJP’s vote share in the bypolls for one assembly and two Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, where it received a drubbing by Congress, ranged between 21% and 12%, signalling an uphill battle for CM Vasundhara Raje as the state heads for polls later this year.

The biggest fall in vote share was in the Alwar parliamentary constituency, where BJP’s vote share dropped from 61% in 2014 to 40%. In the Ajmer parliamentary seat, BJP’s vote share dropped from 56% to 44%. In the Mandalgarh assembly seat, BJP’s vote share nosedived from 52% in 2013 to 32% now.

Anger among Meos on account of Pehlu Khan’s lynching by alleged cow vigilantes was one of the factors for Congress’s surge in vote share in Alwar.