As Kirodi Lal Meena drops another bombshell, why the BJP leader is on the warpath against his own govt

On Monday, Meena stepped up the pressure on the government. He wrote to Sharma about an alleged scam worth “billions of rupees” in the Rajasthan State Warehousing Corporation (RSWC). Meena demanded that the government cancel the tender and act against government officials based on a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit report.

“Irregularities have been taking place in the execution of works in RSWC for a long time due to which the corporation has suffered a financial loss of billions of rupees. Some officials of the corporation have committed huge irregularities in the construction of a warehouse, giving the warehouse on PPP mode and management of the warehouse on behalf of the MOU partner at the instigation of the corporation officials,” Meena wrote in the letter dated May 20.

What the BJP is saying

While neither Bhajan Lal Sharma nor any government official has commented yet on Meena’s letters, a state BJP insider claimed the minister could be attempting to secure his position because he has said he will resign from the government if the BJP loses from the Dausa Lok Sabha constituency in eastern Rajasthan.

“For the BJP, Dausa will be a difficult seat to crack this year and it may very well lose Dausa. Hence, Kirodi ji has become insecure about his Cabinet seat. Looking at his political career ahead, he is in a way holding a knife at the throat of the BJP government. So that even if the BJP loses the seat and he submits his resignation, it should not be accepted,” said a BJP leader, adding that the party may even reshuffle the Cabinet after the Lok Sabha elections are over.

But Meena dismissed the speculation, telling The Indian Express on Tuesday, “I have raised this issue regarding the corruption in our state government to save people’s money. In Gandhinagar, the redevelopment work is going on without any Cabinet approval. The rate of the development is decided as Rs 800 per square foot although the value of that prime location land is around Rs 26,000 per square metre. This is why I have written a letter to the CM hoping that some action will be taken.”

Dausa used to be a general category seat and a pocket borough of the Pilot family. Rajesh Pilot first won it in 1984 and then represented it from 1991 till his death in 2000; his wife Rama and son Sachin have also represented it. But the constituency became reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) during the 2008 delimitation and with that the Congress’s dominance in Dausa came to an end.

Meena, having fallen out with Vasundhara Raje, stepped down as Cabinet minister, left the BJP, and successfully contested the seat as an Independent in 2009. The approximately 4.5 lakh Meena community voters in Dausa give the BJP leader influence in the region. But this time, Gurjars and Meenas — along with SC voters, they comprise approximately 8 lakh of the estimated 10 lakh voters (as per 2019 figures) — are said to have aligned with the Congress.

Sources in the BJP also said that some of the local BJP leaders also worked against party interests to defeat Meena who was at the forefront of the campaign more than candidate Kanhaiya Lal Meena. BJP insiders believe that the choice of the candidate and these other factors make this a difficult battle for the party and that a victory, if it happens, will be a narrow one.

Meanwhile, the Congress targeted the BJP government over Meena’s letters. Former Cabinet Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said the BJP government had lost control of its ministers. “If their party member is claiming that there is corruption, these allegations should be taken seriously. Never, have I ever heard such an incident in our time. They do not have any understanding within the party. This government will soon be gone,” he said.