As Rajasthan gears-up for Assembly polls, next year, the state politics has turned replete with charges and counter-charges with each sides accusing each other of instigating communal disturbances in the state.
Days after communal violence flared up in the Hatwara Bazaar area of Karauli in Rajasthan and Police registering an FIR against 37 people for instigating the violence, the BJP on Friday demanded a judicial probe into the attack on the festival procession on April 2.
Addressing a joint-press conference here BJP leader and former Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Rajasthan BJP chief Satish Punia and former state minister Rajendra Singh Rathore accused Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot of being in "complicity" with the rioters in Karauli and alleged that Popular Front of India(PFI) was behind the communal disturbances.
The state ex-minister Rathore said the state Chief Minister who aggressively promoting " appeasement of minorities" in the state and doing so as he "realizes that power is slipping-out if his hand".
Rathore said Gehlot who was fully "pre-informed" about the attack on the Hindu procession and PFI's involvement has instead accused BJP of "fueling riots" during BJP president J P Nadda's last week's visit to Swai Madhopur the state.
The ex-State Minister said the Chief Minister has given a clean chit to the rioters.
A seven-member BJP team which included Rathore and other MLAs and three state MPs went to Kaurauli on April 5 and submitted its fact finding report demanded a judicial probe into the communal violence.
The BJP leaders accused that Gehlot had imposed curfews in places where the majority community seeks to celebrate their festivals and has completely failed in checking the declining law and order situation in the state.
Rathore also showed a short documentary on the alleged riot in Karauli.
The 200-strong Rajasthan assembly is slated for polls in December, 2023, as Gehlot seeks to repeat his 2018 success in the state which is not in the habit of electing a party twice. BJP though seen a divided house with former Chief Minister Vijayaraje Scindia running her own faction against Poonia group in the state BJP is still hopeful of ousting the Congress which had recently witnessed a virtual revolt by Sachin Pilot leading his faction against Gehlot. Pilot who was deputy-Chief Minister in the Gehlot government is now holding no post in his own party's government and does not see eye to eye with the CM.