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Journalism of Courage
In what appears to be an effort to undo the damage to his image following continuing protests by widows of three CRPF personnel killed in 2019 Pulwama attack, with the BJP having seized the issue, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Saturday met around a dozen widows of soldiers killed in action at his residence. Some of the women who took part in the meeting called the ongoing protest for jobs for relatives other than the immediate family members as “wrong and against the rules”.
This comes on a day hundreds of BJP leaders and party workers courted arrest in Jaipur as part of the party’s protests against the Gehlot government’s “insensitivity” towards the widows of those killed Pulwama, and manhandling of BJP MP Kirodi Lal Meena.
The BJP led a protest in the state capital after Meena was allegedly injured near the city’s Samod police station while on his way to meet one of the widows on Friday. Police resorted to lathi-charge as BJP workers tried to push towards the Chief Minister’s residence, even as one widow claimed that they were being held in a hospital in their respective hometowns against their wish.
The main issue in the case is the three widows’ demand for jobs for people other than the deceased soldiers’ children: Manju, wife of Rohitash Lamba, is demanding a job for her husband’s brother, Jeetendra Lamba, on compassionate grounds; and Sundari Gurjar, wife of Jeet Ram Gurjar, has demanded a job for her brother-in-law.
Arguing in favour of the existing rules, Chief Minister Gehlot has said, “How can we justify giving jobs to any other relative by trampling upon the rights of the children of the martyr? What will happen to the children of the martyr when they grow up? Is it appropriate to trample upon their rights?”
He said: “The present rules have been formulated on the basis of past experience. During my first tenure as Chief Minister, in 1999, the state government had issued (a) Kargil package for dependents of the martyrs.”
As part of the package, he said, jobs are given to the slain soldiers’ wife, or his son/daughter. “The Rajasthan government made the provision that if the wife of the martyr is pregnant during his martyrdom, and if she doesn’t want (a) job, then the job is reserved for the baby in the womb to protect the baby’s future.”
He said that the “dependents of the martyrs of Pulwama have already been helped according to the rules of this package”.
Manju and Sundari, along with Madhubala Meena, wife of Hemraj Meena, have been protesting for 12 days now. While the protest was initially uneventful, Meena’s entry made the situation tense for Rajasthan Police, which has of late dealt with cases such as demolition drive against the “paper leak mafia”; frequently stopping Azad Samaj Party’s Chandrashekhar Azad; and repeated detention/arrest of Unemployment Union’s Upen Yadav, among others.
Over the last few years, Meena has burnished his image as a leader of protests, which usually turn into a cat and mouse game with the police. Unlike Upen Yadav, who is often at the receiving end of the police baton, Meena is a Rajya Sabha MP and thus, police officers say, they can go only up to a certain length to stop his protests from turning unruly.
Friday’s police action against Meena — where he allegedly sustained injuries and his clothes were torn — betrayed this frustration of Rajasthan Police.
But despite Gehlot’s attempts to undo the damage to his image with Saturday’s meeting with the widows, with months to go for the Assembly polls, the damage may have already been done. As visuals of Meena’s alleged manhandling was shared widely on social media, thanks largely to the BJP leader’s well-oiled social media machinery, and he was admitted to SMS Hospital here, the saffron party was forced to unite for the cause and call a statewide protest on Saturday.
