JAIPUR: The Gehlot government's plan to construct a Haj House in Jaipur's Sanganer area has created a major political furore in Rajasthan.
The construction of a Haj House is hanging fire for over a decade as it was originally planned by former Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje, but due to pressure from the RSS lobby, the Raje government could not go ahead with it and the allotment of land for its construction was cancelled.
However, now with the Gehlot government preparing to allot land for the same, the BJP has come out in open opposition saying that it will not allow a "new Shaheen Bagh" to be created in Jaipur.
Ashok Lahoty, the BJP MLA from Sanganer along with some supporters staged a protest at the office of the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) against the Gehlot government’s plan to allocate land for the Haj House's construction.
Lahoty said that the proposed land is currently being used as a general field which is used by many lawyers.
In August 2004, the Rajasthan Haj House Committee was allotted 12,938 square meters of land on the condition that it would complete the construction work within two years.
However, as the Haj House Committee failed to do so, ultimately the JDA had cancelled the allotment on 27 August 2014 and taken control of the allotted land.
The Rajasthan Haj House Committee had appealed against this decision to the JDA Tribunal Authority.
Recently, the court decided on the fate of the land in favour of the Haj House Committee.
The JDA is now planning to allot the land in accordance with that verdict.
But after the protests and threats from BJP, the issue appears to be on verge of escalation.
The Minister for Minority Affairs in the Gehlot government, Saleh Mohammad, said Lahoty's remarks about the haj House only to score some political points.
He pointed that if the Haj House was constructed near Sanganer, it would be much closer to Jaipur airport and that would be a big relief to the thousands of pilgrims from Rajasthan who go for Haj every year.