Backward status sought for Vasundhara Raje district

Jaipur: A letter from Jhalawar district collector has become cause of embarrassment for chief minister Vasundhara Raje.

Addressed to director project, panchayati raj and rural development department, the district collector Dr. Jitendra Kumar Soni has requested in the letter for inclusion of Jhalawar in the six most backward districts in the state.

“Jhalawar is highly backward compared to other districts of the state on social, economic and basic infrastructure para-meters set by NITI Aayog. The backward category status would strengthen its development process,” Mr. Soni wrote.

To support, Jhalawar’s claim, Mr Soni mentioned extreme poverty and abysmally low social and educational standards. “People are dependent on agriculture and manual labour for livelihood. Most scheduled caste and scheduled tribe children are suffering from malnutrition. The road connectivity between villages and cities is poor and during the monsoon the area converts into an island,” he wrote.

According to Mr Soni, 11,000 families have no electricity connection while 2.15 lakh families have been receiving unsafe drinking water.

The district collector send this information in response to the state government NITI Aayog’s exercise to identify 115 most backward districts for special attention and improvement measures.   

Chief minister Vasundhara Raje has been representing Jhalrapatan assembly constituency since 2003. People of Jhalawar have been unfailingly sending her (five times 1989-2003) and her son Dushyant Singh (three times since 2004) to Lok Sabha.

A week ago, during ‘Gaurav Yatra’, Mrs Raje had claimed, “Development works worth Rs 17,000 crore were either completed or running here.”

She also claims in her ‘Gaurav Yatra’ of bringing out Rajasthan from ‘BIMARU’ status. Not surprisingly, the letter came handy for the Congress, which has been critical of her ‘Gaurav Yatra’ and posing daily one question to the CM. “Chief minister should tell where the Rs 17,000 crore went,” said state Congress president Sachin Pilot.

Last month, some youths who claimed to be BJP workers organised a bike rally against the CM. They gave a call “Vasundhara quit Jhalawar” alleging corruption and lack of developing in last three decades during her tenure as MP and CM.