After Rajasthan Cabinet Minister Joraram Kumawat faced ‘uncomfortable’ questions from some locals in his constituency during a programme, locals have alleged that officials were sent to their village Sunday to disconnect their water and electricity connections allegedly for embarrassing the minister.
On Saturday, Kumawat, the cabinet minister for Animal Husbandry and Dairy, Gopalan and Devasthan departments had reached the Panchayat Bhawan in Gurdai in his Assembly constituency Sumerpur in Pali district for the foundation stone and inauguration of several development projects.
However, citing dirty roads in the village, some locals started questioning the minister. They said that the construction of roads had not started and this had led to dirt and filth. Some of the minister’s supporters and local public representatives tried to intervene and said that the minister had other engagements, further enraging the locals and the minister left without giving an address.
On Sunday, local officials from water and electricity departments were allegedly sent to cut connections in Gurdai. In one of the viral videos, a local is heard saying that; “Yesterday, we village residents had kept our issues before Minister Joraram and today, he has sent a PHED team to cut connections and trouble us”.
Talking to The Indian Express, the man behind the video, advocate Kiran Kumar Meena, 23, said that: “I am a common man … We have a dhani (hutment) of about 200 homes of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. When the honourable minister came yesterday, we wanted to tell him that the roof of our local school is leaking, that we don’t have a CC (cement concrete) road and wanted to give him a memorandum. However, the minister and his supporters did not take our memorandum and pushed us out, saying that he has another engagement”.
It was given a political angle, he claimed.
“Sunday morning, teams were sent to cut water and electricity connections claiming that we had illegal connections. We have taken connections at home, how is it illegal? If you think it’s illegal, give us notice. We have had a water connection for five years,” Meena said, adding that he was the main target “as I had the memorandum and I was speaking (before the minister)”.
“I am merely fighting for my rights. And fighting for my rights is my right too,” he said, “The electricity department officials too said that my connection is illegal. I said that I pay my bills and it is my 45-year-old ancestral home. The police officials also said that this is a BJP government and if you are going to protest in this manner before a minister then you will be sent to jail.”
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He went on to say: “But if we won’t tell our minister then whom will we tell? The minister should know that if he has become the minister, he should help people instead of sending officials after us and showing power in this manner”.
He said that he is being targeted by local BJP local leaders “because we are SC, STs and so they think we are Congress leaning, but we are just common citizens and we are following what Babsaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar told us”.
Terming the action as “BJP’s dictatorship” and sharing the video of the incident, the Congress party said Sunday: “Today, on the minister’s orders, the electricity and water connections of the villagers are being cut off. They are being punished for asking questions.”
Meena said he had recorded the video “because BJP workers and government officials had been mentally torturing me since yesterday. So, I recorded a video to protect myself.” He said that eventually, as more and more locals gathered in his support, the concerned engineers left the spot, without disconnecting anything, and after getting calls from their seniors.
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Minister Kumawat could not be reached for comments. On Saturday, he had said that some Congress workers had entered and opposed him at the inauguration programme but that he had given instructions to officials to clean the roads in question and draw up a proposal to construct the roads too.
On the accusations against the district administration, District Collector Laxmi Narain Mantri said, “talk to the honourable minister”, and added, “We are administrative officers; we do what is due to us.”
Meanwhile, Lok Sabha MP Hanuman Beniwal, smarting from electricity disconnection at his Nagaur residence — registered in the name of his brother – over unpaid dues, Sunday shared a bill purportedly showing unpaid electricity dues of Energy Minister Heeralal Nagar. According to the online bill copy shared by the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) supremo, Nagar owes as much as Rs 2.17 lakh to Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited. “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at others,” Beniwal said. Minister Nagar did not respond to calls.
