It could be part of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s social engineering to strengthen caste and community groups traditionally supporting the Congress. He has picked up people from minority and farming communities and appointed
them to different bodies. He had appointed Jat leader Randeep Dhankar as chairman of the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation. The state government also appointed Lad Kumari Jain the chairperson of the Rajasthan State Commission for Women.
The Congress government had made appointments in the Public Service Commission while appointing IPS Habib Khan and Divya Singh as members. Her husband Vishvendra Singh, scion of Bharatpur’s ex-royal family, had joined the Congress before the Assembly elections. He has influence in the Jat community. Mr Khan is serving as superintendent of police in Bikaner and comes from Kayamkhani community of Muslims.
The appointments came close on the heels of the recent Cabinet reshuffling and were seen as a bid to pacify the party’s traditional vote bank.
The chief minister had included four Muslim faces in his Cabinet while two them are women. “It is first time when four Muslims have been inducted in the Cabinet,” says social worker Ashafaque Kayamkhani from Sikar.
In the reshuffle, Jats and Muslims emerged as the biggest gainers as five MLAs from the Jat community were included in the Cabinet. “There is still scope for some more appointments,” says a Congress leader.
The state government was under pressure after violence broke out at Gopalgarh in Bharatpur district on September 14.
The chief minister had already appointed S. Ahmad as chief secretary and M. Yasin as his press adviser. The Congress fielded 17 Muslim candidates in the last Assembly elections while 10 of them won. The BJP nominated four Muslims for the Assembly elections and two of them reached the Assembly.