Jaipur, Nov. 29: The BJP government in Rajasthan is running for cover after two persons were killed in a botched gun salute to a minister.

“We demand a murder case be lodged against the minister, Kirori Lal Meena, for the death of two innocent people,” state Congress vice-president Raghu Sharma said.

Meena has not commented but his party, the BJP, is at pains to prove it was a one-off incident. “It is indeed a sad and tragic incident and should have never happened,” state BJP chief Mahesh Sharma said. “But it cannot be said that such practices are a part of BJP culture.”

The Congress does not agree. “The illegal use of cannons and gunpowder continues unabated in Sawai Madhopur district under the nose of police and the administration and ministers profess no knowledge,” Sharma said.

Congress sources said the gun salute for the food and civil supplies minister was in keeping with chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s penchant for everything royal. Vasundhara belongs to the Gwalior royal family.

Many small, old cannons are strewn across the state and there are no licences for using them, said Jose Mohan, the superintendent of police of Sawai Madhopur, the district where the accident happened in Badoli village.

Police officer Alok Gautam, who was with the minister during the incident, said: “We heard a blast from a distance and our convoy along with the minister never made it to the site of the official programme.”

Mohan said investigations were on and the guilty would be booked under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code, which covers culpable homicide. “The cause could have been overstuffed gunpowder or the old cannon’s inability to withstand the power of the fire.”

In princely Rajasthan, rulers were welcomed with gun salutes and their number signalled the visitors’ status. The number of gun salutes — a protocol established by the British — provoked inter-state rivalry, which successive Viceroys fuelled.