‘Could not sleep, was restless’: Cong’s Dalit LoP on BJP leader ‘purifying’ Rajasthan temple after his visit

However, as the issue led to an outcry, with Ahuja saying that Jully’s “impure” hands and feet had “desecrated” the temple, Jully’s friends and family started calling him up, leading to many more questions on the Congress leader’s mind.

“They were all quite concerned – I felt, more and more, that I am the Leader of Opposition. That I am representing all the 66 Opposition MLAs (of Congress). That I am a leader of the over 100-year-old Congress party, which fought for Independence. If it is happening to me, what must be happening to the common man…. That it is a very serious issue. I could not sleep properly for two days, I was restless,” said Jully, who was the Cabinet minister for the Social Justice Department in the previous Congress government.

Amidst this, the Ahmedabad session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), held earlier this week, came as a timely succour. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi spoke about the incident at the session, while the latter also had a chat with Jully about the incident. “When he (Rahul) kept his hand on my shoulder, I felt that my leader was with me… It was overwhelming,” he said.

Kharge and Rahul speaking about it made him feel “apnapan (a sense of belonging). It helped me a lot, I felt that I wasn’t alone, and that there are people standing with me, that my party is with me,” said Jully.

“…I could not sleep properly for two days, I was restless,” said Jully. (Express photo)

He said the issue raised from the stage of the AICC session “highlighted that even in this day and age, there is untouchability in the society. It helped the issue reach where it hadn’t earlier and will curb discrimination – that it should end. It not only helped spread awareness but will also restrain those who harbour such feelings.”

Since the incident on April 7, the calls and the visits from his well-wishers have not stopped. There have been two kinds of responses from people, said Jully. “Half are being supportive and sympathising, while some others are aggressive… I have told them to not cross the line set by the Constitution, given to us by Babasaheb Ambedkar.”

Zila Parishad to Cabinet

The AICC meet could not have come at a better time for Jully, who has had his fair share of luck over the past two decades and entered politics “by chance, by luck”.

His father Lekhram, who used to run a stone business, was a sarpanch in Alwar from Kathuwas, and connected politically, “but that was it. I had never thought of joining politics,” he said.

The Alwar Zila Pramukh seat was announced as reserved, and Jully was asked to contest as his father was interested in contesting a Panchayat Samiti election instead. Although initially disinterested, perhaps on account of his business and an apparent lack of interest in politics, Jully threw his hat in the ring and went on to become a councillor and the Zila Pramukh in 2005.

He then devoted himself to his work and soon started making an impact. “Tika Ram Jully 100 per cent MGNREGA ki den hai (Tika Ram Jully is everything due to MGNREGA),” he said. As Zila Pramukh, he said he approved works worth Rs 1 – 1.5 crore in most panchayats “which was historic. Back then the wages were just Rs 100, and each panchayat samiti had like a thousand job cards.”

By 2008, delimitation happened and luck struck again when the Alwar Rural seat was created and reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs). Jully contested and defeated the BJP’s Jagdish Prasad by 8,525 votes. “Like Zila Pramukh, I had never imagined becoming an MLA, but since people perhaps liked my work as Zila Pramukh, I became an MLA easily,” he said.

Amidst all this, backing Jully was Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, then a rising Congress star himself, and part of Rahul Gandhi’s inner circle. However, a setback came in the 2013 elections, when Jully lost by 26,799 votes to the BJP’s Jairam Jatav due to a division of votes on account of a triangular contest on the seat.

Eventually, Jully was appointed the party’s Alwar district president in 2016 – he held this post until 2022 – and worked with then state party president Sachin Pilot. In 2018, Jully won from the Alwar Rural seat again by 26,477 votes. He was then appointed as a Minister of State and given multiple portfolios in the third Ashok Gehlot government (2018-23) before being promoted as the Cabinet minister for Social Justice and Empowerment as well as Jails in November 2021.

With his political capital on the rise now, some BJP leaders have claimed that there was a power struggle between him and state Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra, even as both have frequently launched sharp attacks on the Bhajan Lal Sharma government in the Assembly.

Following an impasse in the House during the Budget session, Jully had apologised on Dotasra’s behalf to Speaker Vasudev Devnani, which, as per the BJP, did not sit well with Dotasra.

Jully, however, said it was a “perception set by the BJP.” He pointed out that when “Devnani was suspended (in 2021) for heading towards the then Speaker’s chair, it was Rajendra Rathore who had apologised on his behalf as the LoP. And when Rathore was suspended before that, Gulab Chand Kataria had tendered an apology as the LoP.”