iPhone 2022: Ashok Gehlot offers byte of Apple, BJP declares it forbidden fruit
On February 23, after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot tabled the state budget, the MLAs were given the phones in the budget bags handed out to them, while on their way out.
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The iPhones, along with leather case and charger, deposited with Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria. (Hamza Khan)For the last couple of days at the Rajasthan Assembly, in a room adjacent to that of Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria, a box has been lying under one of the tables. Inside the carton are some new iPhone 13.
The seemingly innocuous box is at the centre of an aggressive political one-upmanship in Rajasthan. On February 23, after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot tabled the state budget, the MLAs were given the phones in the budget bags handed out to them, while on their way out. It was after some time, by when Gehlot’s populist budget was dominating the headlines, as well as photos of the phones had made it to social media, that the BJP announced that its MLAs will return the phones.
BJP state president Satish Poonia tweeted the same, saying: “After discussions between Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria, Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore and other MLAs, it has been decided that all the BJP MLAs will return the iPhone given by the Congress government considering the financial burden on the state.” The average market price of an iPhone 13 is Rs 85,000 plus.
Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasra said that while the BJP wants to give the impression that it was a united decision, it was taken “only by three people”. “It is dikhave ki rajneeti (showmanship). If they wanted to return the phones, they should have done it then and there.”
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal said the returned phones will go back to the Finance Department, which prepares and gives away the budget briefcases to MLAs every year, this year containing the iPhones.
As of Saturday, Kataria said, 46 BJP MLAs had submitted the phones with his office. In the 200-member Assembly, the BJP has 71 MLAs. “Some seven-eight BJP MLAs are absent on account of personal issues, so they didn’t even receive the phones. Some others went back to their constituency after the budget day and will return the phones later. We will submit all these phones with the Assembly Secretary,” he told The Sunday Express.
Kataria said that apart from the cost to the exchequer, the government had failed to keep the BJP in the loop on the move. “Usually, when such a thing is done, the Speaker brings it to our notice and they (government Chief Whip Mahesh Joshi and others) discuss this with us, and the matter is decided with a consensus.”
He said that his staff member had gone to collect the budget bag on his behalf. “So I didn’t know about the phone until later. Else, I would have objected to it on the spot… This is the first time that a ‘gift’ has been given in this manner. And what is the use of such an expensive gift?”
Ironically, some unhappy BJP MLAs also accuse the party leadership of acting without consensus. A BJP legislator, on condition of anonymity, said: “The decision to return the phones could have been taken after building a consensus at a Vidhayak Dal meeting. In the House, we are supposed to debate on the budget. And this budget, I have been told, was uploaded on the phone and no hard copy was given to us, except the CM’s budget speech.”
The state budget documents have been made available on the Apple app store as well as Google Play Store by the state government.
“Question is, who has taken the decision, and at what forum? You summon MLAs twice a day; you could have just called the MLAs again and discussed this. Who would have disagreed?” the MLA added.
Asked about this, Kataria countered: “Such discussions are not required to be taken in Vidhayak Dal meetings. Earlier the government had announced flats for MLAs. That too wasn’t discussed by the Vidhayak Dal.”
The Congress government is defending the gift as moving with the times. “We are heading towards digitalisation and paperless (governance). So we have been giving (computers, phones) to promote it,” said Chief Whip Joshi, adding: “Not just MLAs, the government has announced smartphones, with three-year Internet connectivity, for women head of 1.33 crore families.”
Dotasra noted that Assembly processes were also rapidly moving towards digitalisation.
Mahendra Chaudhary, the government Deputy Chief Whip, explained an iPhone 13 as a natural progression. “Earlier, there used to be bags, then attaché cases, then laptops, then iPads, and now iPhones. In, future we will have something else.”
Last year, Gehlot had presented the 2021-22 budget as the state’s “first paperless budget” and the MLAs were given iPads. Before that, in 2019, almost all the MLAs had availed the option of free laptops, desktops, printers, etc. via the Assembly – a facility since Vasundhara Raje’s 2003-08 tenure, as per Assembly officials.
According to Chaudhary, the BJP MLAs wanted to keep the iPhones too. “They took the phones home, some also inserted SIM cards, their kids celebrated. But then three-four (BJP) people, after a prod by their party’s central leadership, announced this decision.”
And why just return the iPhones, he added. “Why don’t they return the iPads given last year, and the laptops before that, and the Rs 30 lakh flats? They should come forward and return those too.”
Kataria said it was an unfair comparison. “It is not just MLAs, the Housing Board gives homes to the common man too with heavy discounts. And the government wanted the MLAs to vacate the old quarters, so giving away new flats was one way to do that.”
Under the facility that came into effect in Raje’s government, the MLAs now enjoy the choice of taking laptops, desktops and printers by HP, Dell and Epson, apart from Apple iPad Air and Apple iPad Pro, with predetermined specifications, up to Rs 1 lakh. If they go above, they have to shell out money from their pocket.
After the end of the government’s five-year tenure, the MLAs are expected to return these laptops etc to the Assembly, since technically the Assembly owns these items. However, that doesn’t happen, officials said. “So usually, we write to the Finance Department to write off these items,” an Assembly official said.
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