Vasundhara Raje, Ashok Gehlot: Fight for votes

Rattangarh (Churu)/Chokhagaon (Jodhpur), Dec. 1: Like Narendra Modi, Vasundhara Raje is businesslike on the campaign trail, her speeches shorn of oratorical flourishes.

But unlike the Gujarat chief minister, one of whose favourite targets was “Soniaben”, Vasundhara does not name her opponents. “Woh log (those people),” is how she dismisses them.

When she does refer to Ashok Gehlot, former chief minister and the Congress’s favoured candidate for the post again, it is as a “kangal (bankrupt)”.

“The key to Rajasthan’s success is I stopped the ‘kangal’s rona-dhona’ (the poor man’s lamentations). He said he never had money to do anything. I never cribbed or made excuses because I ensured there was enough and more money to work for you,” the chief minister, turned out in a green-and-orange chiffon sari, told an election rally at Rattangarh in north-west Rajasthan.

Like Uma Bharti, she tries also to pull off the “I am one of you” act.

But faced with the charge of petty corruption — the big issue in these elections, with villagers alleging it’s impossible to file an FIR or renew a land title deed without paying bribe — out comes her royal defence.

“I am labelled a corrupt woman. My family has everything. I come from a family that’s used to giving and not taking. I ask only one favour of you and that is give me your love,” Vasundhara says.

The defence does not appear to be working with the villagers who ask how a maharani — Vasundhara belongs to the Scindia house of Gwalior — is allowing corruption.

Govind Singh, the pradhan of Khudibali in the neighbouring Sikar district, says: “A kangal can look the other way at such things. But the chief minister from a royal family has given an open licence to her administration to rip off the poor.”

When Vasundhara swept Gehlot out of power five years ago, it was believed that government employees, allegedly deprived of their perks to bail out the treasury, had worked against the former chief minister.

Now Dhanraj Singh Thanwar, who’s fighting as an Independent from Dungargarh in Churu, says Gehlot’s liability might have changed into an asset.

“He checked corruption. If the signal from the top is strong, it percolates down the line. People reported to work on time. There was a bad drought but he saw to it that every village was supplied with enough water, foodgrain and cattle fodder. Collectors who defaulted were pulled up. Vasundhara keeps saying how much development she has done. She’s not doing anyone a favour. When we vote a government in, this is the minimum we expect,” Thanwar says.

In Luni, near Jodhpur, farmers complain of the proliferation of liquor outlets during the BJP regime. “For every one shop earlier, there are three now, some near temples and schools. The government has put up hoardings with Vasundhara’s photo urging people to give at least one glass of milk to every child per day. But if the father spends on liquor, how can the child get milk?” asks Gordhan Badhoo, a former sarpanch of Karawar.

For the poor, Gehlot is now “our prince”.

But the administration’s vote would go to Vasundhara. “We had a happy time. She paid the overdue bonuses, LTAs, etc., never interfered in our working,” a block development official of Khudibali in Sikar district says.

A bureaucrat in Jaipur says: “Gehlot is ‘kaan ka kachcha’ (susceptible to hearsay) and would dither, never taking decisions. Vasundhara will not countenance dissent, we have to second-guess her mind in order to survive.”