12 districts announced by Gehlot a thing of the past, Congress calls Rajasthan govt decision ‘political vendetta’

In March last year, then CM Ashok Gehlot had announced creation of 19 new districts, including breaking Jaipur and Jodhpur into smaller districts, thus removing them from the cumulative tally. This had taken the number of districts in the state to 50, up from 33. Additionally, the CM had also announced three new divisions of Banswara, Pali and Sikar.

Later in the year, barely a day before the imposition of MCC, Gehlot announced an additional three districts of Malpura, Sujangarh and Kuchaman, taking the total to 53 districts.

Rajasthan Law Minister Jogaram Patel told reporters Saturday that the present government largely reviewed the new districts on certain parameters, including whether the creation of new districts was practical, whether the financial and administrative resources are available or not, whether it will improve law and order or not and whether there will be sanskritik samanjasya (cultural coordination) or not.

“But these were entirely ignored, the population (criteria) was ignored and you will see that the national average is about 9.5 lakh persons (per district), and if they are desert or tribal districts, it is 6 lakh and if you go to districts like Gangtok, the population is 4 lakh, this is largely the criteria. Moreover, there should be six or more tehsils; or about four if it is a small district,” he said, adding that there are no set criteria but “this is largely the criteria.”

“The previous government ignored all this and you will see that there were many districts which didn’t have this population,” he said.

The Sharma government had constituted a cabinet sub-committee which, the minister said, found that these districts are not practical, not in the interest of the public, will put an unnecessary burden on the Rajasthan government, and have no utility for the people. Additionally, the Expert Committee under retired IAS officer Lalit K Panwar too said that the new divisions and districts are not practical or in the interest of the people, minister Patel said.

Gehlot and the Congress party condemned the move as “political vendetta”.

Taking to X, Gehlot said that during his tenure, a committee formed on March 21, 2022, under the chairmanship of retired bureaucrat Ram Lubhaya to reorganise the districts, and that this panel made its recommendation based on reports from dozens of districts.

“Before the formation of new districts, the average population of each district in Rajasthan was 35.42 lakh and area was 12,147 square kilometers (although the area of Tripura state is 10,492 square kilometers, area of Goa state is 3,702 square kilometers, area of Delhi Union Territory is 1,484 square kilometers), whereas after the formation of new districts, the average population of the districts became 15.35 lakh and area became 5,268 square kilometres,” Gehlot said, condemning “this short-sighted and politically vindictive decision taken by the BJP government”.

Describing the decision as “anti-people”, Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasra said that the party will launch a campaign.

“The decision was timed in such a way so that people can’t even approach the courts and that it will be opposed through a jan andolan (public campaign),” he said, adding that the party might consider approaching the courts.