Gaurav Yatra continues to face protests in state
TROUBLE Rajput Karni Sena has threatened to wave black flags when the yatra enters Churu JAIPUR:Protests
against chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s Gaurav Yatra, which has entered its third leg, refuse to die down. Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena, a fringe group, has threatened to wave black flags when the yatra enters Churu district on Monday.
Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena district president Murjad Singh Lohsana said that his party will hold protests at Ratangarh, Taranagar, Sadulpur and Churu town — the route the yatra is scheduled to traverse through on Monday and Tuesday.
“The BJP government has not fulfilled the promises it made to the Rajputs. They have not fulfilled their promise of reservation and the committee constituted for the purpose is yet to submit its report,” said Lohsana.
The Rajputs are also unhappy because the government is yet to concede to their demand of withdrawing cases registered against the community members during a protest for reservation and the violence that followed gangster Anandpal Singh’s encounter.
“Some of us are being summoned to Delhi by the CBI,” Lohsana said. The state government had conceded to the demand of the Rajput community to order a CBI probe into the Anandpal Singh encounter case but had also handed over the probe of violence that followed the encounter to the investigative agency.
State BJP spokesperson Mukesh Parikh said that the party has always taken all communities and caste along with it and any grievances could be resolved only by holding talks. “We have held talks with them on previous occasions and are committed to taking affirmative action,” he said.
The Gaurav yatra has faced violent protests in Jodhpur and Sri Ganganagar.
On August 26, Jodhpur police had arrested 10 people and rounded up some more from Piparcity in Jodhpur district for pelting stones on the Gaurav Yatra the previous evening.
Some people had also vandalized the meeting spot and tore off the banners and hoardings of Raje and other party leaders.
On September 7 evening, more than a dozen farmers and Congress workers were injured in Sri Ganganagar after police resorted to cane charge and lobbed teargas shells after a mob, which was planning to stage a protest ahead of the yatra, refused to lift a road blockade.
Raje began her 40-day yatra from Rajsamand in Mewar region on August 4.
A day before the launch of the yatra, the Mewar Kshatriya Mahasabha, Vagad Kshatriya Mahasabad and Rajpur Arakshan Manch had marched from Udaipur to Ekling temple for 4 km to appeal to the community to oppose the CM’s yatra in the region.
The state BJP has blamed the Congress for the protests saying it was trying to create hurdles in the yatra, a charge that the Congress has denied.
The BJP has not fulfilled the promises it made to the Rajputs. They have not fulfilled their promise of reservation... We have held talks with them on previous occasions and are committed to taking affirmative action.
MUKESH PARIKH, State BJP spokesperson