Shekhawat slams international Rajasthani meet

Shekhawat told a media conference here yesterday that Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had selected the most inappropriate time for holding the conference, reminding one of the proverbial fiddling Nero while Rome burnt. He said the state was reeling under a famine, the rains had been inadequate for the second consecutive year, drought had forced lakhs of people to migrate to other areas and innumerable heads of cattle had perished due to paucity of fodder. To top it all, soya bean crops worth Rs 300 crore in Kota division had been destroyed by caterpillars locally known as illi. There was an acute shortage of drinking water and power in many areas. The government had closed its doors on fresh recruitments, abolished thousands of posts and further created unemployment. Instead of attending to such pressingproblems, the government had diverted all its attention to the conclave, Shekhawat said.

Worse still, Rs 50 crore was to be spent on the meet, which had been arranged without any spadework. It would end up achieving nothing, he said.The former chief minister also claimed that Ashok Gehlot’s assertion that the conclave was not intended to attract investments ran counter to the budget speech of state Finance Minister Pradyumn Singh, in which he had stated that a conference of non-resident Rajasthanis would be organised to give a boost to industrialisation. The government should also have sought the participants’ advice on the efforts needed for the revival of sick units.

Shekhawat further alleged that the whole show has been hijacked by the bureaucracy. While Gehlot and his ministers were supposed to sit and watch, it was the officers who were scheduled to make presentations on various aspects. It only meant that the Chief Minister and Ministers were incapable of performing this task.

He also said the government was resorting to window-dressing Jaipur by widening roads, beautifying traffic islands, painting buildings, arresting beggars and removing cows from selected areas. In an unprecendented move, the famous Ram Niwas Bagh had been given out for a cultural programme. The Public Relations Department had been bypassed and a private agency had been given the contract for publicity. All this qualified for a subsequent inquiry, he added.