Indian National Congress tries to take every opportunity that comes in their way to defame the ruling BJP. After it urges the resignation of political weights Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje in Lalitgate Case, now it takes a fresh dig at Vasundhara Raje.
Party spokesman Jairam Ramesh accused Raje of converting a government-owned palace at Dholpur into a luxury heritage hotel along with her alleged “business partner” and fugitive former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.
Though Ramesh presented some documents to support his claim, Congress leaders failed to explain why the deal happened when the Congress government was in power. Yes. It happens during Ashok Ghelot’s tenure in Rajasthan.
Ramesh cited a letter from the Home Ministry (it was called Ministry of states by that time) government of India, dated April 10, 1954, on the properties of Maharaja Rana Udai Bhan Singh, the ex-ruler of the erstwhile Dholpur state, that were taken over by the government on the merger of his state into India.
However, state Bharatiya Janata Party president Ashok Parnami and Rajasthan health minister Rajendra Rathore refuted the charges.
The saffron retaliates by claiming that the City Palace was given back to the ex-ruler in exchange of the Kesarbagh Palace, which now houses the Dholpur Military School, one of the five such schools in the country.
State BJP president Parnami claims that the City Palace and surrounding properties were returned to the Dholpur royals in 1957. The Union government had also acquired Dholpur House near India Gate in New Delhi that now houses the Union Public Service Commission.
Confused with the unexpected hit back from the BJP, Jairam Ramesh cancelled a press conference in the evening, which is intended to prove that BJP is falsifying the facts. He cited the reason as “not getting the crucial documents from Jaipur in time”.
- Manohar
