‘Vile politics’: BJP denies ‘reports’ of Delhi Police detaining top Rajasthan minister from hotel

The BJP leader said he had read about it in the paper.

“I don’t know for whom it was written but people contorted it to malign someone’s image,” he said, adding that people who don’t have anything better to do spread such “rumours”.

Senior cabinet minister Kirodi Lal Meena too posted on X, “They are spreading rumours by telling blatant lies about Deputy Chief Minister Shri Dr Prem Bairwa ji who is continuously serving the people. Those doing this are polluting the society and the politics of the state. I condemn those doing such reprehensible and vile politics.”

On October 3, Congress party’s chairperson for social media and digital platforms, Supriya Shrinate, had posted a cryptic message on X – “BJP, Rajasthan, Delhi, Le Meridien Hotel, Russia” – without elaborating further. On October 4, the Rashtriya Janata Dal had posted from its official handle on X: “BJP’s Deputy Chief Minister caught with a Russian in a five star hotel in Delhi. Efforts to hush up the matter continue!”

Without naming Shrinate, Rathore said, “I respect her, she is a woman politician, but she should not stoop so low.”

Asked whether the party investigated the alleged incident on its own, he said, “I have all the information regarding our leaders. When something happens, we thoroughly investigate on our own. And after thorough investigation, I can officially say that no such thing happened. It is only a conspiracy imagined to malign someone’s image.”

With Bairwa being a Dalit, Rathore said that the issue reflects the Congress party’s anti-Dalit mindset.