JAIPUR: The death of senior Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma has reignited a superstition about the Rajasthan Assembly building being inauspicious. A part of the building is said to have been constructed on an old cremation ground, which is located adjacent to the premises.
The buzz about it being an unlucky structure started when the new Assembly building was inaugurated about two decades ago. The superstition took firmer roots after the death of Kishan Motwani in 2002, and since then it is believed that the house can never run with its full capacity of 200 MLAs. In the four years since the last elections in 2018, six MLAs of various parties have passed away — Master Bhanwar Lal Meghwal, Kailash Trivedi, Gajendra Singh Shaktawat and Bhanwar Lal Sharma of the Congress, and BJP MLAs Kiran Maheshwari and Gautam Lal Meena.
After the death of seven-time Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma on Sunday, the superstition is once again being discussed in hushed tones. During the previous Vasundhara Raje-led government, after the death of MLA Kalyan Singh in April 2018, word went around that ghosts and evil spirits lurk in the Assembly premises. A demand was also made to conduct a ‘havan yagya’ on the premises.
The then Chief Whip KL Gurjar and BJP MLA Habibur Rahman had also raised similar demands. Although Sharma was ailing and undergoing treatment for a long time, his death now is also being linked to that belief. Local residents say that the Assembly complex is located adjacent to Lal Kothi Moksha Dham and some part of the crematorium also falls within its premises.