Ministers confined to hotel, business almost as usual for Rajasthan govt

The Rajasthan government is conducting at least a part of its official business from a resort here, thanks to video conferencing.

On Tuesday, several ministers attended an official meeting from JW Merriott hotel, where over 100 Congress MLAs are holed up for a week to deter alleged BJP attempts to ‘lure’ them away ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.

While Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was at his home in the Civil Lines along with Health Minister Raghu Sharma, the others were at the hotel for the meeting on fighting coronavirus.

Rajasthan’s government chief whip Mahesh Joshi said there is no restriction on the ministers' movement. He said some of them go out for work while others handle it from the hotel amid other activities like workshops.

“We all are staying together and this is an opportunity for us to spend time together. There is no restriction on the movement of ministers because they have to go out for important work but generally they are handling work from the hotel,” Joshi said.

Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara too tweeted pictures showing official work being done from the hotel.

“The work should not stop during political restrictions,” Dotasara said.

Gehlot had also held a video conference on Friday morning at the Shiv Vilas resort, where the legislators were initially kept before being shifted to the nearby JW Marriott hotel.

Meanwhile, a session on former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was held on Tuesday at the hotel for the legislators.

A musical event is also being held there.

On the other hand, a state minister came under fire on Twitter for posting a picture of playing cricket.

Subhash Garg, the only MLA of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), tweeted the picture saying, “Enjoyed football and cricket with cabinet members and fellow MLAs at the Hotel Marriott today.”

Soon after this, he was criticised on Twitter with people arguing that while they are battling with the coronavirus crisis, ministers and MLAs are enjoying.

Alleging that the BJP is trying to poach its MLAs and topple the Ashok Gehlot government in the state, the ruling Congress has kept its legislators at the hotel.

The Rajasthan government has said that the state's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Special Operations Group (SOG) of its police are also looking into the “attempts”.

The BJP, however, has dismissed the developments as theatrics, “self-staged” by Ashok Gehlot and challenged the ruling party to produce evidence to back the charges.

The Congress has nominated KC Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi for the Rajya Sabha polls for three seats on June 19. The BJP has fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat.

In the house of 200, the Congress has 107 MLAs and has the support of independent MLAs and legislators of other parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal, CPI (M) and the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP).

The ruling party has more than enough majority to win two seats and the opposition BJP, which has 72 MLAs and support of three Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MLAs, has the numbers to comfortably win just one seat.