Vasundhara Raje hits out at Congress; BJP wants CBI probe in phone tapping

Breaking her silence, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Saturday hit out at the Congress leaders for accusing the BJP for the alleged attempts to topple Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s government.

Raje, who is considered as the tallest BJP leader in the state, said it was unfortunate that the people of Rajasthan were paying for the “internal discord” within the Congress at a time when Covid-19 had claimed more than 500 lives and positive cases had crossed 28,000, the state facing locust attacks and crime against women is at an all time high.

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“There is no point trying to drag the BJP and the BJP leaders’ names through the mud. It is the interest of the people that must remain paramount. Think of the people,” the former chief minister said.

Raje’s remarks came a day after the Rajasthan police arrested Sanjay Jain, a BJP functionary, on charges of conspiracy to topple the government. The audio clips released by the Gehlot camp on Thursday has purported conversations between Jain, Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma and Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, planning to poach MLAs to bring down the Gehlot government.

BJP on Saturday demanded a CBI probe in all the aspects of the alleged phone tapping in Rajasthan and claimed that the political crisis in the state is a mix of “conspiracy, lies and illegalities” of the Congress government.

The blame game between the Congress and the BJP continued over the investigation launched by the Rajasthan Police into the audio clips with the leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan assembly, Gulabchand Kataria demanding to know whether the Gehlot government was tapping phones of opposition leaders.

Congress hit back at the BJP accusing the Haryana government of engineering the escape of its rebel MLAs from the resort in Manesar when the team of Rajasthan Police reached there on Friday to question Pilot loyalists Sharma and Vishvendra Singh.

“We have been told now that attempts are being made to take them (rebel Congress MLAs) to another BJP ruled state Karnataka,” Congress spokesman Pawan Khera told reporters.