JAIPUR: Rajasthan assembly speaker CP Joshi on Monday said that PWD engineers should take heed of the sentiments of people so that unfortunate incidents (like demolition of a welcome gate without removing idols of Ram Darbar atop it) do not happen.
The Speaker said he had given some ruling when Churu MLA had raised the issue regarding Salasar and now he was correcting it now.
He made the remarks just before the house adjourned after passing of the Rajasthan Appropriation Bill (number 2), 2022, and Rajasthan Finance Bill, 2022.
"Some points were brought to my notice. I would like to tell the engineers of the Rajasthan government's PWD that public sentiments should be understood, (so that) such unfortunate incidents do not happen, this is what I wanted to correct," he said.
Earlier in the day, during the zero hour, the speaker had not allowed the Churu MLA and deputy leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore to raise the issue of demolition of 'Ram Darbar' welcome gate on Salasar-Sujangarh saying that the matter pertained to the central government.
The gate was located on a road that leads to famous Salasar Balaji temple and was demolished for widening of the two-lane road into a four-lane one.
PCC chief Govind Singh Dotasra told reporters outside the assembly that the welcome gate was constructed by an NGO on which there were idols of Ram Darbar made of plaster of Paris and were placed on the gate without 'Pran Pratishtha'.
'Pran Pratistha' refers to a religious ritual performed while installing god's idol.
All the same, he said it was unfortunate that the idols were not removed from the gate before demolishing it.
"It is the responsibility of every government and every officer to ensure that no one's sentiments are hurt," he said.
Dotasra alleged that BJP state president and other leaders have made phone calls to the priests of Salasar to start an agitation over the issue.
"BJP leaders are calling the priests of the temple asking them to start an agitation. BJP wants to give it an aggressive form," he said.
"They are left with just one work, divide people in the name of religion," he said.
Dotasra said that during the rule of previous BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje, over 300 temples were demolished in Jaipur during the work of Jaipur metro rail.
He said that idols in those temples were installed after Pran Pratistha but they were demolished.
Independent MLA and CM's Advisor Sanyam Lodha claimed that widening of the road was a project of NHAI and the state government was not responsible for the demolition.
BJP MLA and chief spokesperson Ramlal Sharma maintained that the demolition hurt the sentiments of the people.
The gate was demolished last week.