More bad news awaits the Congress in Rajasthan as the party is all set to lose an MLA in the state. According to media reports, one of Rajasthan MLA in his affidavit had stated that he passed Class 9. In the affidavit for the Rajasthan Assembly Elections, Giriraj Singh, son of Chhotey Lal, asserted that he completed class ninth from the Government Inter College in Badi.
But further investigation proves that no such school existed in the time mentioned in the affidavit. The act of submitting false information in the affidavit is a sheer violation of the code of conduct. This act of counterfeiting by him is an act of forgery and thus the MLA stands on the verge of losing his seat. Meanwhile, the district inspector school has ordered an FIR against him.
According to District Inspector of Schools (DIOS), the investigation further revealed that Girija Singh qualified class X as a private candidate by using fake documents. Also, the principal of DAV College, Motikatra has been directed to lodge an FIR against him. According to media reports, in his affidavit submitted before Election Commission in 2013, MLA Giriraj Singh mentioned his qualification as class 6th. In 2018, he claimed to have studied till High School. This surely has created distrust and suspicion.
This case of forgery in the affidavit is not new. A similar case happened where Delhi’s law minister Jitender Singh Tomar got arrested over the charges of allegedly submitting forged degrees in the nomination papers for the assembly polls. He later got arrested for allegedly using fake degrees to enroll as an advocate. According to the charge-sheet, Tomar was allegedly “desperate” to get graduation or a post-graduation degree, and tried all possible ways to procure one.
The Congress won 99 seats, BJP won 73 and BSP won 6 seats out of the 199 seats that went to polls. A minimum of 101 seats are needed to form a government in the House of 200. Since there is no clear majority for the Congress and thus every single seat becomes crucial for the party’s survival in Rajasthan. Hence the future of Congress in Rajasthan appears to be bleak. Also, the way Congress is losing the plot in Rajasthan is suggestive of the fact that one or two more blows of such sort would be lethal for the party and it will find hard to survive. Although results of assembly election in Rajasthan went in the Congress’s favour they do not seem to be giving good governance in the state.