Rajastha:Union Jal Shakti Minister and Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has alleged that Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was framing him for the defeat of the latter’s son, according to a report by The Times of India.
Shekhawat said that “a fabricated audio clip released last week by the Rajasthan Congress was engineered by chief minister Ashok Gehlot to avenge the defeat of his son in 2019”.
The Jodhpur MP had defeated Gehlot’s son and Congress candidate Vaibhav by about 2.7 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha polls 2019.
The minister, told the publication that the contents of the tape were “malicious and defamatory”.
“Neither the voice (in the recording) is mine, nor the accent. I have heard the entire conversation in the three audio clips. The person who is being referred to as ‘Gajendra’ has the accent of a man from the Sri Ganganagar region while I speak with a heavy Jodhpur Marwari accent. Second, it’s laughable that content in the clip is being seen as seditious in nature.”
Responding to the name ‘Gajendra Singh’ figuring in the FIR, the Union minister said, “The source of the recording is unverifiable. The case is being built against me only to bully and instill fear in the minds of Congress MLAs held at the Fairmont hotel in Jaipur by Gehlot to thwart a potential rebellion. There is no probe by the Rajasthan government regarding how and where that audio originated on social media or who recorded it. Instead of verifying the clip’s veracity, authenticity or even its source, CM Gehlot has chosen to send his state cops to record my statement and collect my voice sample out of vendetta for 2019. He wants to send a message to his MLAs that if he can frame a Union minister, he can frame them too.”
The Congress few days back released three audio clips that had conversations revolving about the proposed overthrow of the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan. Shekhawat was alleged to have been one of the three men doing that conservation, the other two being Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma and one Sanjay Jain. Later two FIRs were filed in this matter.
