JAIPUR: Chief minister Ashok Gehlot has used the reply to the Budget discussion in the assembly to disarm the opposition and woo a cross section of people towards the ruling party keeping in mind the bypolls.
The ruling party has a high stake in the ensuing polls as three of the four seats were held by Congress and one by BJP.
Any advance by the BJP would be projected as the unpopularity of the Congress government and Gehlot.
His announcement of economically weaker sections (EWS) to get the benefit of age relaxation and waiver of fees to apply in government jobs on a par with the other reserved classes was a masterstroke which nobody can find fault with.
Though PM Narendra Modi introduced the EWS reservation, Gehlot stole the show by relaxing the eligibility of EWS reservation by hiking the income limit to Rs 8 lakh per annum and removing immovable assets from the purview of annual income.
This made a sizable population of that section eligible for reservation and removed the role of babudom from assessing the income of EWS candidates.
Gehlot also announced a ‘back to work’ scheme for women.
He said women who were forced to leave their jobs due to marriage or some other reasons would be given a chance to come back to the job.
He said 15,000 such women would be brought back to work in the next three years.
This is a positive measure especially when working women have been at the receiving end during the economic slowdown and Covid-induced lockdown.
The chief minister also tried to touch upon the Meena-Mina dispute with his announcement that both Mina and Meena are same and only a spelling mistake would be a relief to the powerful Meenas who enjoy ST reservation.