Ahead of elections the directorate of enforcement (ED) conducted multiple raids in Rajasthan. It raided premises of a Gehlot's minsiter of home Rajendra Singh Yadav and state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasara. ED had also summoned Vaibhav Gehlot, son of Ashok Gehlot in a case related to violating of foreign exchange laws in money transferred from Fairmont hotel. The progenitor of Lal Diary Rajendra Gudha lost election.
While Govind Singh Dotasara won the election from Laxmangarh defeating Subhash Maharia, who had recently joined BJP after quitting Congress. With strong candidate like Maharia and ED raids, people were expecting Dotasara to lose the election. But there seems to be no impact of ED raids.
“Since no action took place after ED raided house Dotasara and summoned his sons for investigating into paper leak case, people were made to understand that ED raids were nothing but politically motivated. In fact sympathy generated due to ‘false raid' helped Dotasara win votes,” said Balu Ram Choudhary, a resident of Laxmangarh.
Like Dotasara, Ashok Gehlot, whose son was summoned by ED, also won easily without even any intense campaign in his constituency.
However, Rajendra Singh Yadav, another ‘ED victim' did lose his seat in Kotputli. The margin though was slim as less as 321 votes. Political analysts believe that his defeat was nothing to do with ED raids.
“Hansraj Patel of BJP won the election. Yadav fought strongly and was leading in most of the rounds. ED raids didn't affect his fortune,” said Ramphal Gurjar, a resident of Kotputli.
No impact of Lal Diary
The timing of diary discovery was questionable. Gudha, whose conscience arose few months before elections , released few pages of diary mentioning events related to rebellion in Congress and allotment of mines to Congress leaders. The diary had no relevance in elections and Gudha found himself in the losing side. He had been MLA from Udaipurwati twice in 2008 and 2018 elections and also lost twice – in 2013 and 2023 elections.
The BuckStopper, run by a group of seasoned journalists, holds the powerful accountable. The buck stops with them, as they cannot shrug off their official responsibilities.
