In eye of storm over revolver case, Rajasthan BJP MLA – Raje loyalist to disqualification
Rajasthan BJP MLA Kanwarlal Meena is set to be disqualified from the Assembly after the Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed his petition challenging the state High Court's May 2 order, which upheld his three-year conviction by a lower court and directed him to surrender 'immediately' in a 2005 case for threatening a Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) officer with a revolver.
The apex court's order effectively means that Meena would lose his membership of the state Assembly. As per Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1951, the conviction of a lawmaker for an offence with a two-year sentence or more leads to his / her disqualification from the House.
Rajasthan Assembly Speaker Vasudev Devnani said he is taking the opinion of the Advocate General and other senior lawyers on the issue of Meena's disqualification, adding that a decision on the same will be taken 'soon, as per the rules, and within the time limit'.
While not the first instance in Rajasthan, this would be one of the rare cases for a sitting MLA to be disqualified in the state. The last such instance happened in December 2016, when the then Assembly Speaker Kailash Meghwal had terminated the Assembly membership of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA B L Kushwah after he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in an 'honour' killing matter.
For Meena, it might put a pause on his direct involvement in electoral politics – a legislator being disqualified under the RP Act cannot contest for six years after the date of completion of his sentence. However, like Kushwah, who had fielded his wife after his disqualification, it may not be the end of the road for Meena.
A two-time MLA, Meena, 50, currently represents the Anta constituency in Baran district.
During the hearing in the top court, senior advocate and former Orissa High Court chief justice S Muralidhar pointed out that Meena 'has 27 cases against him, of which 15 were even before the said incident' and that 'after this case, 12 more cases were filed'. He called the attacks on public servants Meena's 'specialisation'.
The revolver case pertains to February 2005, when Ramniwas Mehta, then a RAS officer posted as the Sub Divisional Officer in Aklera, was informed of a group of people in Manohar Thana, Jhalawar, blocking the road to demand repolling in an up-sarpanch election.
When Mehta and others reached the spot, Meena, who arrived with 6-7 men in a vehicle about half an hour later, took out a revolver and aimed it at Mehta's head asking him to 'announce a repoll within two minutes or get killed'.
Mehta, as per records, told Meena that 'a revolver can kill but not enforce a repoll'. Mehta, later promoted as an IAS officer, is currently posted as the Secretary, Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC).
In January 2016, Meena and his men, armed with sticks, had allegedly attacked several social activists and their vehicles in Jhalawar. The activists of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), an NGO founded by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, were taking out a 'Jawabdehi Yatra' (accountability march) across the then chief minister Vasundhara Raje's home turf Jhalawar.
Meena, then BJP MLA from Manohar Thana in Jhalawar district, and his men were accused of publicly molesting, manhandling, abusing, and beating up women activists. The MLA himself was accused of groping and slapping the women. It was also alleged that he was backed by then CM Raje. Roy and Dey had charged that then home minister Gulab Chand Kataria told them that he was unable to act against Meena since his 'file' had been 'stopped' by Raje, even as Kataria denied their claim.
In this matter, an FIR was lodged against Meena under various sections including rioting, wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing grievous hurt, and assault or criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty. However, he was acquitted by the trial court and later by the ADJ court.
An MKSS activist, Mukesh Goswami said they are, however, still pursuing the case in the high court.
While giving its order Wednesday, the apex court, in oral remarks, said: 'Elected representatives need to discipline themselves…this is one of those rare cases where somebody has been convicted otherwise you do everything and anything and get away with it, without any action against you.'
Mukesh said, 'Such people who have a criminal mindset should not be given a ticket by any party. During elections too, we had written to BJP president J P Nadda and requested him to not give a ticket to Kanwarlal Meena.'
A strongman, Meena has kept a relatively low profile beyond his area of influence. He was first elected from Manohar Thana on the BJP ticket in 2013, defeating the Congress's Kailash Chand with a 20% vote margin.
Meena won the 2023 polls from the Anta seat, about three hours' drive from Manohar Thana. After his election, he was in the news again. As the wait for the naming of a new CM by the BJP leadership continued following the party's victory in the polls in December 2023, Hemraj Meena, father of Kishanganj BJP MLA Lalit Meena, alleged that his son was taken to a resort on the outskirts of Jaipur and sequestered there by Raje's son Dushyant Singh, an MP, even as the Raje camp called the entire matter a 'conspiracy'.
Hemraj had alleged that Lalit was among five MLAs at the resort from Jhalawar and Baran districts and that Kanwarlal Meena played the 'main role' in this episode. He also alleged that it was Meena who had stopped him and 'was ready for a brawl', adding that 'Kanwarlal was saying, talk to Dushyant Singh before you can take him away. I called Dushyant but he did not answer the call'. However, talking to The Indian Express then, Meena had dismissed it as a 'plot to malign Dushyant Singh's name'.
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