In a major embarrassment for the Congress government in Rajasthan, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Friday read out from the wrong document while delivering his budget speech. In a mix-up, Gehlot read out of the 2022 Budget documents while presenting this year’s budget. The Chief Minister remained oblivious to his faux pas for a good 8 minutes. The moment he realised his blunder he paused looking perplexed. “1 minute, sorry,” said the CM.
The entire House broke into peals of laughter and chants of “shame, shame” were raised by the Opposition. The house had to be adjourned following commotion over the issue.
Gehlot was finally stopped by his colleague and minister Mahesh Joshi. The assembly proceedings were disrupted as BJP MLAs stormed into the House.
The BJP which is Opposition in the state was quick to lap up the issue to score political brownie points questioning Gehlot’s “seriousness” as a leader. The BJP state and national leadership left no stones unturned in highlighting the mistake as an instance of the Chief Minister’s casual approach towards the governance of the state. Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said that the budget mix-up proved that the state wasn’t in safe hands.
“This has probably happened for the first time in the history of budget presentation. I have also been a Chief Minister. When I was the Chief Minister , I used to read the budget papers several times before presenting them. You can only imagine what will be the condition of the state in the hands of a Chief Minister who can’t even read the right budget document,” said Raje.
BJP Lok Sabha MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore speaking with The New Indian reacted to the matter on the sidelines of the budget session of the Parliament in the national capital. “A Chief Minister supposedly works for several months to put together the budget document. It is shocking that Gehlot had the wrong document in his hands. It is clear that for Congress government in Rajasthan people are not important,” he said.
At the end of the budget presentation Gehlot urged the media to read the Budget document carefully. “Every section of the society is happy with the budget brought #बचत_राहत_बढ़त in mind the target of 2028 development, but the BJP is unhappy with the public budget. I understand their pain because the public is now going to make them sit in the opposition till 2028,” he tweeted.