Ex-CM Ashok Gehlot targets CM Vasundhara Raje government for rape cases in Rajasthan

JAIPUR: Targeting state BJP government for the large number of rape cases recorded in first quarter of the year, former chief minister and AICC general secretary Ashok Gehlot on Friday asked if chief minister Vasundhara Raje would follow the advice she once gave in the matter to previous Congress government.

“During the Congress rule, Raje used to say that a government under which girls get raped has not right to remain in power and that such a government should drown itself in a ‘palm-full of water’. Will the chief minister now follow her own advice?” Gehlot said in a statement, while highlighting that everyday more than 10 cases of rapes were now being recorded in Rajasthan.

Gehlot said that as per PHQ’s quarterly report, 183 women were raped or molested in 90 days (January to March) in Jaipur range alone, while the figure for the entire state during the same period stood at 966 women being targeted. “The woman chief minister has become insensitive. She talks a lot about women empowerment but the truth is that women today feel highly unsafe. Under the BJP rule, women are scared of stepping out of their houses, while the girl children are not safe even in their own houses,” the Congress leader claimed. He added that the CM appears to have lost her grip over the administration.

Gehlot hit out at home minister Gulab Chand Kataria too. “The home minister boasts a lot about his department but the reality is that the police have lost its repute.”