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Another Rajasthan Minister quits
Already struggling to survive politically, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot received another setback on Saturday when the State Forest Minister resigned following publication of reports in a local daily about his alleged involvement in hushing up the case of death of one of her close relations in suspicious circumstances on September 27 at Bhilwara.
In his resignation, sent to the Chief Minister late in the evening, Minister Ramlal Jat said that these allegations were baseless and he was ready for a probe.
No one in the Chief Minister’s office or any of his aides could either confirm or deny having received the resignation of Jat. Source said his resignation is unlikely to be accepted as he is believed to be one of Gehlot’s trusted leaders. The resignation of Jat would add to the problems of Gehlot who is trying to bail himself out from the Bhanwari Devi scandal which has rocket the internal politics of Congress party in the State.
According to the newspaper story, on September 27, one Paras Devi, wife of his relative Ratan Jat died in local MG Hospital in mysterious circumstances. The Minister, who was in the town for a meeting, reached there to take away the body without carrying out a postmortem, though the doctors had declared that it was not a natural death.
But by threatening the doctors, he took away the body to nearby town of Gulabpura. There doctors declined to carry out a post-mortem without a letter from the police. Jat, along with some relatives came back to Bhilwara and forced the doctors around midnight to carry out a post-mortem, which is against the norms. At the same time instead of producing a letter from the police, Jat persuaded the district collector to direct the hospital authorities to carry out the post-mortem. Reports say the postmortem revealed that Paras Devi died due to consumption of some poisonous substance. The report also said that the Minister by using his influence tried to hush up the case. Reports also suggested that Jat was having illicit relations with the lady. It also carried details of how the Minister promoted certain women employees out of turn, when he was chairman of Bhilwara Cooperative Dairy.
