Court directs police to file FIR in Raje poster row

JODHPUR: A lower court here on Wednesday directed the police to register FIRs against BJP MLA Surya Kant Vyas and publisher Hemant Bohra in connection with Vasundhara Raje poster controversy.

Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh's wife Sheetal Kunwar had filed a petition in the court yesterday seeking action against the publisher of the controversial poster depicting Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje as Goddess Annapurana.

Kunwar had said in her complaint that the police had not even filed on FIR in the case, whom she had approached on May 25.

She said the police have not taken any action and are indulging in dilly-dallying. She demanded that a FIR be lodged and action be taken against the publisher of the posters.

Hearing the pleas, judicial magistrate Saroj Choudhary of court No. 3 on Wednesday directed the police to register an FIR under Section 156/3 of IPC at Udai Mandir thana.

Advocate Girdhar Bhati and Deepak Maneria had filed the complaint in the court of judicial magistrate (No. 3) on behalf of Kunwar on Tuesday.

Pandit Hemant Bohra, former vice-president of Jodhpur unit of BJP, has designed the poster anointing Raje as Goddess Annapurna, Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Lord Vishnu, L K Advani as Lord Brahma and Rajnath Singh as Lord Shiva.

He justified the poster saying Raje fully deserves ''divine status'' for all she has done for Rajasthan. The poster was released in April by BJP MLA Surya Kant Vyas.

The poster has embarrassed the BJP leadership, who had urged Raje to denounce it.