BJP MLA from Jaipur's Hawa Mahal constituency, Balmukundacharya, has landed in another controversy now. Balmukundacharya, 48, has been booked by the police on Friday night on a complaint alleging that he along with a group of his supporters raised slogans and pasted offensive posters in the Jama Masjid premises in the walled city in Jaipur. The incident sparked communal tension in the area and prompted the intervention of the police. Tension flared when the BJP MLA and his supporters gathered outside Jama Masjid on Friday night and began sloganeering and putting up posters there, according to the police. This led to another group to gather in the area and hold a protest against Balmukundacharya's alleged action, prompting Jaipur Commissioner Biju George as well as Congress MLAs Rafiq Khan and Amin Kagzi to reach the spot. Following a complaint from the Jama Masjid Committee, an FIR was registered against Balmukundacharya late on Friday night. In a post on social media, Balmukundacharya, a first-time MLA, said he had participated in a protest earlier on Friday against the Pahalgam terrorist attack. “On a call given by Sarva Hindu Samaj, I joined a public outrage meeting at Jaipur’s Badi Chaupad to protest against the terrorist attack in Pahalgam and paid tributes to the innocent people killed. I protested against this incident by raising slogans of ‘Pakistan Murdabad, Aatankvad Murdabad (Down with Pakistan, down with terrorism)’,” he stated. The Muslim protesters alleged that the BJP MLA entered the mosque with his shoes on, indulged in sloganeering and put up posters on the walls in a “deliberate attempt to disturb peace”. After the controversy snowballed, Balmukundacharya tendered an apology on Saturday. One of the four religious leaders elected on the BJP ticket in the Rajasthan Assembly elections in December 2023, Balmukundacharya had hit the headlines for the first time hours after the poll results that saw the BJP storm back to power after defeating the incumbent Congress. At the time, Balmukundacharya asked local officials to take action against alleged encroachment by non-vegetarian restaurants in parts of Jaipur’s old city, questioning if they could sell in the open and whether they had a licence. In a video that had then surfaced of the Hawa Mahal MLA outside the Old M M Khan Hotel, one of the more popular eateries in Jaipur, he was seen pulling up the restaurant manager claiming that women cannot pass by the place, and that “sharabi kebabi (drunk and characterless)” persons who throng there spoil the atmosphere. He went on to say purportedly that this was “Apara Kashi (Our Kashi), not Karachi”, amid slogans of “Jai Shri Ram”. Later, as a controversy followed, Balmukundacharya had apologised for these comments, while the Jaipur Municipal Corporation said that unlicensed vendors would be issued notices. Talking to The Indian Express at the time, Balmukundacharya had said the issue he raised was valid but it was perceived “in a wrong way”. “Rules say that meat should be cut in factories and then distributed. But here, there are unlicensed shops all around, leading to diseases. Now after I raised it, there is a queue of people seeking a licence. Where were these people for five years?” While he has sparked several controversies in less than two years as an MLA, Balmukundacharya’s election campaign too had made headlines. He claimed the main issue in his constituency to be “an exodus from the walled city”. “Businessmen and those living here for generations are vacating. There is also encroachment of religious places, while old temples and structures have been razed or changed beyond recognition,” he had said. On the day of the Assembly election result, till the penultimate round, his opponent, R R Tiwari of the Congress, had been leading, but in the final round, Tiwari received only 374 votes against Balmukundacharya’s 4,061, and lost. Tiwari eventually lost by just 974 votes, with the AIMIM and Aam Aadmi Party together polling 1,161 votes and spoiling his chances. After his win, Balmukundacharya had said his priority would be the restoration of temples and old structures, developing parks, businesses, addressing traffic woes, installing cameras to provide security, deploying female police squads, setting up a sports academy and a yoga centre, all of which would help attract tourists. He had also said: “My vision is that ‘all 36 qaum (communities)’ are now my family. Hindus – which include Sikhs, hence there is no need to mention them separately – Muslims and Christians, we are all brothers. We have to change this city and make it beautiful, we have to restore the old form of the city.” Balmukundacharya is well-known among the locals as the mahant of the popular Hathoj Dham temple. The MLA had told The Indian Express that his family had a long-running tradition of pooja, sewa and adhyatam (prayer, service and spirituality). “Last five to six generations of my family have been devoted to temples, maths, ashrams and gaushalas. I myself run an ashram, mandir, gaushala and a gurukul. Hathoj Dham is the centre (of our religious activities) with multiple branches,” he said. According to Balmukundacharya, he had been associated with the RSS since childhood, apart from with the Bajrang Dal and VHP. “Wherever I went or worked, I constantly went to (RSS) shakhas,” he said. His formal education ended mid-Class 10. He said he later studied Sanatan Dharma through pooja paath (prayer) and Vedic studies from a gurukul and at home. He is married with three people listed as “dependents” in his 2023 election affidavit. He also claimed to have been jailed twice over the Ayodhya Ram Temple movement. Friday’s incident at Jama Masjid is the latest in a line of controversies allegedly involving Balmukundacharya. In January 2024, videos went viral of his comments against students wearing the hijab at government schools during a visit to one such school, which was followed by a call by senior Cabinet minister Kirodi Lal Meena to enforce a hijab ban. Later, Muslim students surrounded a police station and sought an apology from the MLA. In July 2024, Balmukundacharya said people of “a particular community” have “four begums and 36 children” while calling for laws on population control, which the Congress criticised as showing the ruling BJP’s intention to “target the Muslim community”. “There is a huge problem of increasing population. There is a particular community which has ‘char begum aur chhatis bacche’. There are countless such cases. This is wrong. There should be equal laws for everyone, otherwise how will the country move forward,” the BJP MLA was heard saying in a video that later surfaced. Last September, Balmukundacharya held a “purification” ceremony at the Jaipur Municipal Corporation Heritage (JMCH) office to remove the “stains” of corruption and to “convert” turncoat Congress councillors into “Sanatanis” before they could lend support to the BJP. The BJP had removed sitting JMCH Mayor Munesh Gurjar following charges of corruption against her, replacing her with its own pick of Kusum Yadav, propped up with the support of seven Congress turncoats and one Independent, all of whom later joined the BJP. Before Yadav took charge, the JMCH premises, the councillors and JMCH officers were “purified” by Balmukundacharya, who had sprinkled a combination of Gangajal and gomutra (cow urine) on the councillors as well on the premises. Earlier this year in March, he made several statements critical of loudspeakers in mosques, including at an event of the BJP’s legal cell. “I have a complaint which will be resolved only through you (lawyers). A lot of us have migraines; we get headaches. The loudspeaker is played five times a day very loudly. The lawyers should please accept my prayer. I appoint you and you should resolve this problem as my lawyers,” he said. While the Congress had criticised him for “stoking communal tensions”, he was even reprimanded by Deputy Chief Minister Prem Chand Bairwa, saying that “we don’t use such indecent language”.
