BJP, Congress and a drawn-out battle for Jaipur Mayor’s chair

Hence, as she took charge once again on November 12, Gurjar was handed a show-cause notice by the state government and asked to respond by November 18.

The latest developments have their origin in June 2021, when over six months into Gurjar’s tenure, it came to light that three councillors had allegedly assaulted the civic body’s commissioner Yagya Mitra Singhdeo in the mayor’s presence. At the time, Singhdeo and Gurjar were involved in a dispute over alternative arrangements for garbage collection as workers of BVG – a company in charge of waste management and disposal – were on strike.

The state government went on to suspend Gurjar and order a judicial investigation. A notice announcing her “immediate suspension” read, “Since Dr Somya Gurjar is Mayor, JMC Greater, and is a councillor from ward 87, and the charges against her are serious, there is full possibility of the judicial investigation being influenced if she continues to be the mayor.”

While the state BJP led by Satish Poonia protested against the decision, the Congress government leveraged differences among BJP councillors and announced BJP councillor and former mayor Sheel Dhabhai as the interim mayor of JMC Greater. Some BJP leaders led by Poonia protested outside the party’s state office against Gurjar’s removal even as Dhabhai was taking charge.

Meanwhile, Gurjar alleged that the state government did not allow her to present her case and moved the High Court. She then approached the Supreme Court, which, in February, stayed her suspension order till the conclusion of the judicial investigation.

On September 27, the government said that the judicial investigation into the June 2021 incident found her in violation of certain sections of the Rajasthan Municipal Act, 2009, and dismissed her from the mayoral post and debarred her from contesting elections for six years. The dismissal prompted Gurjar to knock on the doors of the court once again.

Even as the matter was being heard in court, the state government initiated fresh elections. The BJP’s mayoral candidate Rashmi Saini was confident, while the Congress’ Hema Singhania was hoping to spring a surprise. Leading up to the elections, councillors belonging to both parties were huddled up in resorts for about a week to prevent poaching.

But on election day last week, a High Court Bench, quashing the September 27 order for suspension, asked the government to issue a fresh show cause notice to Gurjar. The court said, “After affording the petitioner a reasonable opportunity of a personal hearing, the respondents may pass a fresh reasoned order.” This resulted in the show cause notice to her on November 12.

But with the state government’s intentions regarding Gurjar amply clear, it is expected that the government may again remove her as the Mayor, while she may approach the courts over her dismissal; the issue has seemingly turned into a ‘prestige’ issue for the government. Gurjar has managed to return to the chair again and again. The seat itself assumes significance as she is the first mayor of the newly carved Jaipur Greater Municipal Corporation, which covers the seat of power in the state capital.

But Gurjar seems unperturbed. She and her husband Rajaram Gurjar are no strangers to controversies.

In 2016, when she was a member of the Rajasthan State Commission for Women she clicked a selfie with a rape victim. She was asked to resign after the National Commission for Women reprimanded her and chairperson Suman Sharma, who was also in the picture, for an “insensitive act”.

Rajaram is one of the main accused in an FIR filed in connection with the Karauli communal violence in April. Earlier, in June 2021, a video surfaced in which a person alleged to be Rajaram was seen asking for a Rs 20-crore commission from a representative of the BVG to clear the firm’s outstanding bills worth Rs 276 crore.