JAIPUR: The Rajasthan government has ordered a special probe into the embarrassing power outage that disrupted Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's press conference at the BJP state headquarters in Jaipur.
Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar said the incident has been taken seriously and warned that strict action would be taken against any official or engineer found negligent.
When Union Railway and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was addressing the media on Thursday, as part of the BJP's nationwide campaign marking 12 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government at the Centre, the state BJP office was plunged into darkness after the electricity supply snapped.
The incident soon went viral, highlighting that the Vaishnaw's press interaction in Jaipur turned 'ironic' as he was present in the venue to elaborate on the achievements of the Modi government and to outline key developmental initiatives undertaken.
Shortly after the press conference began, the power supply to the BJP office was disrupted, leaving the conference hall in total darkness for nearly 20 minutes.
State BJP President Madan Rathore and Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar were present on the dais at the time. Although electricity was restored after some time, the power went out twice again during the event.
The repeated outages reportedly left BJP leaders angry and upset as officials kept scrambling to resolve the situation. Nagar immediately contacted power department officials, while efforts were made to restore the supply.
The backup generator at the BJP office also reportedly failed to start.
Vaishnaw eventually continued addressing the media under the light of mobile phones and television cameras.
The incident soon triggered a political row, with the Congress party targeting the BJP government over the disruption. Sharing a video of the darkened press conference on the social media platform X, the Rajasthan Congress took a swipe at the ruling party.
In a post from its official handle, the party remarked, "If the BJP government cannot manage the power supply at its own office, how will it manage Rajasthan's power system?"
On Friday, Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar sought a detailed report from officials of the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited and Jaipur Discom regarding the incident.
He announced that an inquiry committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of the Additional Chief Engineer, Jaipur, to investigate the matter.
The committee also includes the Superintending Engineer (SE), Jaipur Rural, and the Assistant Engineer (Protection Engineering).
According to the minister, the committee will examine the reasons behind the tripping and power failure and recommend measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Speaking to the media, Nagar said ensuring an uninterrupted and reliable electricity supply remains a top priority for the state government.
He stressed that any lapse in the power system would not be tolerated and assured that necessary corrective measures would be implemented to avoid such incidents in the future.
