New Delhi: More fissures have emerged in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Rajasthan unit ahead of the upcoming state elections, with former assembly speaker and Vasundhara Raje loyalist Kailash Meghwal accusing Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal of corruption during his days as a civil servant.
Speaking at a public meeting Tuesday in his assembly constituency, Shahpura in Bhilwara district, Kailash Meghwal said he would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to drop Arjun Ram Meghwal — a 69-year-old former IAS officer who’s currently minister of state for law and justice, culture and parliamentary affairs — from the Union cabinet.
“This Arjun Ram Meghwal is Corrupt Number 1,” the 89-year-old BJP MLA said. “He has corruption cases going on to this day. I will write to Prime Minister Modi to expel him from the Union cabinet. I will tell him that you have a minister who was involved in corruption, that when he was an officer, he didn’t even spare the poor or the Scheduled Castes and took money from everyone.”
Both Kailash Meghwal and Arjun Ram Meghwal are prominent Dalit faces of the BJP from Rajasthan.
Tuesday’s speech comes at a time of roiling within the Rajasthan BJP, with leaders loyal to former chief minister Vasundhara Raje upset with the party’s central leadership for not projecting her as the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
It also comes less than a month after Arjun Ram Meghwal — seen as a possible chief ministerial contender — was named convenor of the BJP’s 25 member ‘sankalp patra’ (manifesto) committee in the leadup to the assembly election, due in or before November.
Later in the day, the Shahpura MLA told ThePrint over the phone that he would stick by his allegations. “I will write a letter to the prime minister about cases pending against him,” he said.
He also added that a loyalist of Arjun Ram Meghwal was seeking a ticket from his constituency. “I have apprised BJP’s Rajasthan in-charge Arun Singh of the situation. I’ve been in public life for 45 years. I expressed my desire to fight this election,” he told ThePrint, adding, “Who’s this Arjun Ram Meghwal to decide on ticket distribution in my constituency?”
The Union minister, meanwhile, has threatened to file a defamation case.
“Kailash Meghwal should introspect before levelling such charges,” the Bikaner MP told reporters in Jaipur. “Fifteen years ago, he accused Vasundhara ji of corruption to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore. It looks like Kailash Meghwal’s ageing mind has stopped working.”
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Arjun Ram Meghwal joined the Rajasthan civil services in 1982 and served in various capacities before he was promoted to the ranks of the Indian Administrative Service. In 2009, he took voluntary retirement from the civil services to fight, and win, his first parliamentary election from Bikaner.
Before this, Kailash Meghwal had been the state BJP’s most prominent Dalit face. But after his win, Arjun Ram Meghwal quickly rose through the ranks in Rajasthan. Between 2014 and 2016, the Bikaner MP served as the chief whip of the BJP in the Lok Sabha.
In July 2016, he first became part of Modi’s Council of Ministers, and has since served as MoS for finance, water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation, heavy industries and public enterprises.
In his speech in Shahpura, Kailash Meghwal accused the Union minister of joining politics to save himself from corruption charges when he was a civil servant.
The Shahpura MLA also had a few words of praise for the state’s Congress Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and assembly speaker C.P. Joshi.
“When I came here, I was told that it’s because of C.P. Joshi — who was an MP (from Bhilwara) and a Union minister — that we are able to drink water from the Chambal (river) today. He also laid a network of roads,” he said. “If Ashok Gehlot has done somethingfor Shahpura, should not I praise it?”
‘Upset’ Raje supporters
The speech, taken altogether, appears to signal a rumbling within the state’s BJP unit, especially in light of Raje’s perceived sidelining.
It also comes just before the BJP flags off its four-phase ‘Parivartran Yatra’ from Ranthambore on 2 September.
Raje’s supporters are not only upset by the party’s reluctance to name her as the chief ministerial face, but are also rattled by the increasing involvement in state politics of other leaders from Rajasthan such as Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Amber MLA and Raje detractor Satish Poonia, and Arjun Ram Meghwal.
A BJP leader from Rajasthan who didn’t want to be named told ThePrint that Kailash Meghwal’s speech signals a larger discontent among Raje’s supporters over the party’s decision to sideline her in the affairs of the Rajasthan BJP.
“She was neither made the CM face nor were any attempts made to placate her,” the leader said. “This signalled to her supporters that her camp may not get sufficient tickets. Under the changed circumstances, either Shekhawat or Arjun Ram Meghwal could be the dark horse and emerge as the state’s chief ministerial candidate.”
Significantly, Raje gave Union home minister Amit Shah’s rally at Gangapur a miss earlier this week. According to the leader, there’s a fear that the Raje faction could dent the BJP’s prospects in the upcoming election unless they are placated.
Indeed, Gehlot, too, appears to be signalling a thawing of what was previously a bitter rivalry with Raje. Addressing a crowd at a programme in Raje’s bastion of Dholpur in May, Gehlot had reportedly said that Raje and Kailash Meghwal had helped “save” his government in 2020 by speaking out against horse-trading, when the central BJP leadership was trying to “topple” his government.
He was referring to the time when Gehlot’s bête noire, Sachin Pilot, and 18 other MLAs had rebelled against the state Congress leadership.
Raje, however, had later dismissed Gehlot’s claims.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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