Rajasthan agriculture min Kirodi Lal Meena resigns weeks after LS polls defeat
On Wednesday, a statement by the chief minister’s office said state minister K K Bishnoi has been given additional charge of the agriculture department
Jaipur: Rajasthan agriculture minister Kirodi Lal Meena, who vowed to step down from the state cabinet if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost any of the seven Lok Sabha seats under his charge in the national elections, resigned from the cabinet on Wednesday evening.
Meena told reporters that he sent his resignation letter to chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Wednesday evening. “I am worried about my weakened influence in my areas. Hence, I have resigned from the post,” the BJP leader said, referring to the BJP losing four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in eastern Rajasthan under his charge.
The minister added that he had met the chief minister after the Lok Sabha results were declared. “The CM said that he would not accept the resignation. But I had to keep my word to the public. Therefore, I hadn’t attended cabinet meetings and stopped using the official car and bungalow.”
On Wednesday, a statement by the chief minister’s office said state minister K K Bishnoi has been given additional charge of the agriculture department and minister Otaram Dewasi has been given rural development and panchayati raj departments following Meena’s resignation.
Meena, a two-time Lok Sabha MP from Dausa and six-time MLA, was a Rajya Sabha member last year when the party decided to field him from the Sawai-Madhopur assembly seat to improve its prospects in eastern Rajasthan. In January, he was inducted as cabinet minister in the BJP government led by Sharma, a first-time MLA.
During campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections, Meena declared that he would step down from the state cabinet if the BJP loses from the Dausa Lok Sabha that he previously represented. On June 3, the BJP leader told reporters hours before the counting of votes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given him a list of seven seats to oversee during his visit to Dausa. “I worked hard on 11 seats, but more on 7. If the party loses even one of these seven seats, I will resign from the post of minister,” he said.
Among the four seats that the BJP lost in the eastern Rajasthan belt was Dausa where the Murari Lal Meena of the Congress defeated the BJP candidate Kanhaiya Lal Meena by a margin of more than 237,000 votes. The BJP also lost Bharatpur, Dholpur Karauli and Tonk-Sawaimadhopur Lok Sabha seats and won Jaipur Rural, Alwar, Jhalawar seats.
“Meena’s resignation is a result of BJP’s autocratic- approach towards their own public representatives during elections. Despite being a senior leader and two-time MP, the BJP central leadership has always ignored his voice and opinions in the CM selection process and formation of the government. They finished the voices of all such senior leaders and legislators of their party,” Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra said on the development.
