Gehlot drops Ajmer iftar

Posters condemning Gopalgarh firing force CM to change his plans

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot has cancelled his proposed Ajmer visit on Monday. 

His two-day visit to the pilgrim city included attending an iftar party hosted by minister of state for education Nazim Akhtar which was objected by a section of the Muslims comparing Gehlot with Modi for the Goplagarh violence which killed 10 Muslims in police firing.   

According to official sources, the chief minister dropped the programme as he is ‘unwell’. But sources said, chief minister was advised to avoid the programme considering a section of the minority community antipathy towards him.   

 Just a few  days prior to his visit to Ajmer, posters comparing Gehlot with Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi appeared at the mosques of Dargah Sharif city on Saturday and was a topic of hot discussion in the city.

 Gehlot was scheduled to participate in a roza iftar party at Ajaz Park on July 31. The district administration giving final touches to the visit was, however, thrown in tizzy on Saturday, as posters condemning the chief minister for the Gopalgarh police firing incident of September last year  appeared at some mosques in the city’ s minority-dominated areas. The police and the intelligence units were immediately put on alert.

One such poster found in a mosque in the locality behind the district Collectorate drew similarity between Rajasthan’s Gopalgarh and Gujarat’s Godhra where minority people were killed in one of the country’s worst riots in 2002.

“What is the difference between Godhra and Gopalgarh?  and what is the difference between Modi and Gehlot?" the poster read.

It was undersigned by an unknown organisation, Jagruk Musalman Samiti, Ajmer. The poster urged the minority community people to boycott the chief minister’s roza iftar party on July 31.