Jaipur, Apr 21 (PTI) Targeting the BJP government in Rajasthan, Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday questioned how could a fire break out in the Pachpadra refinery, which is a new project, causing its inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s to be postponed.
“Either there has been a lapse or there was psychological pressure to complete the work quickly,” the former Rajasthan chief minister said, addressing a press conference here.
He said he spoke to an expert who said that fire in a 20-25-year-old refinery can occur due to technical reasons, but “such an incident in a new refinery is unusual.” Gehlot said the incident that happened a day before its inauguration was “extremely unfortunate” and demanded that accountability be fixed for it.
The Congress leader said the BJP government was not paying attention to public issues.
“The entire government has gone on the back foot due to the ‘Intezaar Shastra’ (Gehlot’s series of attacks on allegedly stalled welfare programmes). There has been a lot of rhetoric, but no answers or facts on when the projects will actually start,” he said.
On the women’s reservation issue, Gehlot alleged that the BJP created the confusion.
“The issue was of delimitation, not women’s reservation. The women’s reservation bill was already passed unanimously by both Houses of Parliament in September 2023,” he said.
Raising the issue of pending dues, he said payments of around Rs 4,500 crore in the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) have been pending for the past 33 months, leading contractors to warn of agitation.
Highlighting farmers’ concerns, Gehlot said, “Farmers are under pressure and facing difficulties. Loan waiver should be implemented again on the same pattern as done earlier.” Gehlot further objected to delays in panchayat and urban local body elections, calling them contrary to constitutional provisions, and alleged collusion between the government and the accused in the Adarsh credit scam. PTI AG SKY SKY
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