Political fireworks: MLAs pull off stunt on January 1
A former minister of state of health, the Navalgarh MLA has resigned in protest against the failure of health department during the recent strike of government doctors.
On the first day of 2018, Rajkumar Sharma, independent member of legislative assembly of Navalgarh, met assembly speaker Kailash Chandra Meghwal at Rajasthan assembly in Jaipur to submit his resignation. Miles away from Navalgarh, MLA of Alwar (urban) constituency, Banwari Lal Singhal made to news with ‘communally insensitive’ post on New Year eve.
A former minister of state of health, the Navalgarh MLA has resigned in protest against the failure of health department during the recent strike of government doctors. The MLA of Alwar has a very religious based idea of ‘family planning’ in mind.
An MLA from the ruling party BJP, Singhal in his post demanded a two-children compulsion, citing that some communities are trying to gain dominance through indiscriminate rise of population. The population theory is often fancied by right wing organisations. When approached by DNA, Singhal was not even regretful of the post. “It was based on discussions on wall of a saint that I realised that indeed a community is trying to tilt the population equation. This must be checked,” said Singhal.
The Alwar MLA, however, denies his comments being linked with the parliamentary elections scheduled in his constituency district. Even as model code of conduct is implemented, he sees no reason to keep his divisive observations, restrained. ‘I am not a candidate of my party, my party has not even yet announced a candidate on the seat,” he says. Even a day has past the MLA making the ‘communally offensive’ post, the state BJP leadership took no note of the situation. Meanwhile in Jaipur, speaker of the assembly took resignation of Rajkumar Sharma ‘in consideration’ but ‘not accepted’ it either.
Docs request MLA
All Rajasthan In-service Doctors Association (ARISDA) has requested MLA Rajkumar Sharma to reconsider his resignation. ARISDA president, Dr Ajay Chaudhary in a message said that the hardships faced during the strike be best forgotten as public health services return to normal following initiative of CM.