New Delhi: Rejecting the accusation of collusion with BJP's Vasundhara Raje, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said he had barely conversed with the BJP leader around 15 times over the course of the past 15 years and that his government follows a policy of "zero tolerance" against corruption, reported PTI.
He also said that people misinterpreted his statement made in Dholpur that BJP leaders Vasundhara Raje and Kailash Meghwal had helped him survive the 2020 revolt, saying that it was something that he had heard.
"I had said in Dholpur that Vasundhara ji and Kailash ji helped in saving my government. People misinterpreted it. She did not come to me and said that I am standing with you,” he said, as quoted by PTI.
Gehlot said that during the political crisis, Kailash Meghwal had given a statement that there is no tradition of toppling the government in Rajasthan. He added that what he had said in Dholpur on Sunday in the context of Raje was something that he had “heard”.
“...it is not like that Vasundhara herself said (to me) that she is saving the government...,” he said.
The chief minister's remarks came amid Sachin Pilot's ongoing "Jan Sangharsh Padayatra" from Ajmer to Jaipur which he had announced on Tuesday on the issues of corruption and recruitment exam paper leak cases.
The move of Pilot to take out the five-day yatra came after Gehlot's allegations made in Dholpur on Sunday that the rebel Congress MLAs had taken money from the BJP to topple his government.
Reacting to Gehlot's statement that Raje had helped in saving his government, Pilot in a press conference on Tuesday said that “it appeared from Gehlot's statement that his leader is Vasundhara Raje, and not Sonia Gandhi.”
While addressing a public function in Nagaur, Gehlot said that there is a vast difference in his thinking and that of Raje and that they would have talked hardly 15 times in the last 15 years.
"I blame Vasundhara Raje, her way of working is negative. She works with the spirit of revenge, I work with love, she intimidates and threatens the officers in her own way and the worst thing is that she stops the work so that Ashok Gehlot does not get the credit,” he said.
He said that after becoming chief minister, Raje stopped several works done by his previous government and therefore there cannot be a friendship between him and her.
“Will I ever be friends with the one who has taken the contract to stop my works?” he asked.
The chief minister also said that he never boasted about the party winning 156 seats in 1998.
“I became chief minister in 1998, I had brought 156 seats but I never said that I brought. It was Sonia Gandhi and the high command that brought the seats. It was the victory of our policies and principles,” he said.