JAIPUR: Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi on Thursday equated Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to a “bhagoda” (fugitive/absconder), accusing him of failing to appear before the Rajasthan police in the phone tapping case that rocked the Ashok Gehlot government during the rebellion by Sachin Pilot last year.
In a tit for tat, Shekhawat tweeted late night, “‘Bhagoda’ are those who sneak to Bangkok, Thailand.
#Congress.” The reference is apparently to Rahul Gandhi’s trip to Bangkok in 2019.
After Joshi’s statements, Congress workers shouted slogans against Shekhawat outside the PCC headquarters here.
BJP state president Satish Poonia reacted sharply and said Joshi was taking out his frustration for being summoned by the Delhi police crime branch in another case related to the same phone tapping.
Mahesh Joshi, on the other hand, challenged the legality of the crime branch’s notice.
The Congress leader was asked to appear before the special operations squad-I in Prashant Vihar on Thursday, but he has written back saying that CrPC Section 160 under which the notice was sent required the police to go to the senior citizen’s house for questioning.
Joshi, who is 66 years old, further cited corona safety guidelines, his busy schedule as chief whip and the short notice for not appearing before the police.
“Shekhawat has advised me to face the Delhi police.
Shekhawat sahib, first you face the Rajasthan police, give your voice sample and cooperate in the probe, otherwise people will call you ‘bhagoda’,” Joshi told reporters here.
“For a public figure, people’s perception is very important.
I don’t know if the police will declare him a ‘bhagoda’ or not, but in the people’s eyes he is a ‘bhagoda’.
One is not a bhagoda only if the police declare so.
When one absconds morally, then too one is considered a bhagoda,” he added.
Joshi claimed the audio clips, based on which the case was lodged against him in Delhi, had the voice of Shekhawat and the Rajasthan police needed the Union minister’s samples to investigate the same matter registered here too.
BJP state president Satish Poonia said, “Slogans against the Union minister are condemnable.
Congress leaders have been real fugitives in this country since the British times.
They may have raised the slogans in remembrance of their ancestors.
Will someone become a fugitive by shouting slogans?” Poonia added, “When a man gets agitated and uses abusive words, it shows there is some sin in him and his wrong is being caught.
Phone tapping and spying (of MP/MLAs) in Rajasthan is proved.”