When Vasundhara Raje, the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in Rajasthan, embarked on her Parivartan Yatra from Charbhuja in Rajasamund district on April 17 after giving up a cosy ministerial berth at the Centre, she obviously thought she was on her way to power at Jaipur.It was a demanding task she had set for herself, for the road journey through the desert expanse dotted by dry Aravali hills in peak summer was no picnic. Through with half the journey, she finds her path blocked by an unforeseen object, Social Justice Front (SJF), which is disrupting her public meetings en route to press for her support to reservations for the economically weaker sections.The matter has the potential of deflating her whole mission, planned to galvanise the anti-incumbency factor against the Congress government led by Ashok Gehlot and set the stage for a BJP return to power.That SJF activists have spared Congress president Sonia Gandhi of the same level of hostility at her rally in Sagwara and police have allowed them to have their way at Vasundhara’s public meetings points at Gehlot’s complicity. As if to demonstrate its neutrality, SJF members made a token attempt to intrude in to a function of Gehlot at Gajner, Bikaner, yesterday.However, the BJP cannot grudge Gehlot his right to retaliate. After all, the BJP set Jats against the Congress during the last Lok Sabha polls by promising them OBC status. The party reaped a rich harvest, walking away with 16 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state.Much to the embarrassment of the BJP, the SJF includes its own members. Its president Devi Singh Bhati, a former minister, is a party MLA from Kolayat. A leading light of the SJM is S.N. Singh, a retired IAS officer and former member of the state OBC Commission. Singh, belonging to Gehlot’s Mali community, is known for his proximity to the CM. Since Malis are already listed as OBC, the reason for Singh’s involvement in the movement betrays any logic.Raje, after charging Gehlot with a hand in the disruption of her public meetings on May 17, released a list of 12 people — all Congress workers. Gehlot refuted her charge but not before taking a dig at her by underlining she was an ‘‘outsider.’’As Raje begins the third leg of her tour from Bhadra tomorrow, she is faced with the twin challenge of setting her own house in order and taking on the SJF. For the time being, she has tried to diffuse the issue by appointing a committee headed by former minister Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi to examine it. However, she will soon be entering Bikaner district, Bhati’s stronghold, where she face a magnified problem.
