Ajmer varsity prof held in bribery case

A professor of Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University (MDSU) in Ajmer was arrested on Monday by the Anti Corruption Bureau allegedly for accepting bribe from a student in lieu of sanctioning her fellowship amount.

Later, the bureau official raided house of the professor, Satish Agarwal, in the city to investigate his property and other assets. The said professor was suspended in 2009 for financial irregularities.

A female student of the university had complained to the bureau allegedly that Prof Agarwal was demanding ₹50,000 to verify her fellowship papers.

After verifying the complaint, the ACB laid a trap and arrested Prof Agarwal red-handed on Monday. Like other constituencies in Rajasthan’s Hadoti region, the Sangod seat in Kota district has been a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Of the 12 assembly polls held here after the independence, the Jana Sangh and later the BJP won 9 times and the Congress thrice. The Republican Party of India, which had its roots in the Scheduled Castes Federation led by BR Ambedkar, had won the first assembly poll held in 1952.

Many stalwarts in state politics had fought their poll battle in the Sangod constituency. Earlier it was known as the Digod seat.

BJP leader and Member of Parliament from Kota Daudayal Joshi won from Digod twice in a row in the 1980s. In the 2003 assembly polls, Congress leader Bharat Singh defeated BJP heavyweight and former minister Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi in the seat. Singh won again in 2008 and became a cabinet minister for panchayat raj and PWD in the former Congress government. He lost to BJP candidate Heeralal Nagar in the 2013 assembly polls by a margin of 29232 votes.

Dhakars (an OBC community) and Dalits dominate Sangod. The constituency has around 40000 Dhakar, around 38000 scheduled caste and around 22000 scheduled tribe voters. It has also around 18000 Mali, about 17000 Muslim and some 15000 Gujjar voters.

Considering the caste calculus, the BJP fielded Heeralal Nagar, a Dhakar, from Sangod

AJMER: