In the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, under Ashok Gehlot government, the state-run Jodhpur electricity distribution company has promised uninterrupted power supply to Muslim dominated areas.
Jodhpur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, also popularly known as Jodhpur Discom has issued directives that there would not be any power cuts in any of the Muslim dominated areas in the state for the entire month of Ramzan.
The letter issued by Jodhpur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited dated April 1, 2022, has been doing the rounds on Twitter. Twitter user @8PMnoCM shared the copy of the letter issued by Jodhpur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited.
— राजस्थानी ट्वीट (@8PMnoCM) April 5, 2022
According to the letter issued by the Jodhpur electricity department, the month of Ramzan begins on April 4. People observing Roza should not be inconvenienced by the hot weather, so it should be ensured that all Muslim-dominated areas in Jodhpur, Pali, Sirohi, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Jalore, Bikaner, Churu, Hanumangarh, and Sriganganagar have uninterrupted power supply throughout the month of Ramzan.
OpIndia contacted Jodhpur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited to verify the letter’s authenticity. Mr KG Agarwal, the PA to the Managing Director of Jodhpur Discom confirmed that an order has, indeed, been issued by the MDs of Jodhpur, Jaipur and Ajmer Discoms to supply uninterrupted electricity to all the Muslim dominated regions falling under their respective areas.
Agarwal went on to say that the order was issued in response to a motion introduced in parliament by Congress MLA Zahida Khan. Following this, Rajasthan’s Congress-led government directed all three Discoms to ensure that there are no power outages in any Muslim-dominated region of the state during the entire month of Ramzan.
Rajasthan Congress leader Zahida Khan
Zahida Khan is a Member of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly and a Minister of State in the Rajasthan government. She was elected as an MLA from Kaman, Rajasthan, twice- once in 2008 and again in 2018. She has also held the positions of Parliamentary Secretary and State Minister in the Government of Rajasthan. In October 2011, she was also named General Secretary of the All India Mahila Congress.
In February last year, Zahida Khan was booked for allegedly threatening and assaulting a local man in Jodhpur. The complainant had alleged that on January 31, 2021, when he was on the way to join the farmers’ agitation near the Haryana border, armed goons of the MLA started beating him up. He claimed that he was rescued by the locals and passersby. Zahida Khan had, however, refuted the allegations calling them “baseless and politically motivated.”
Zahida Khan is the same Congress leader, against whom a complaint was lodged with the Election Commission in 2019 after a video of her controversial speech in the Kaman region of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan which falls in the Mewat region had gone viral. In the video, she was heard playing the caste and religion card by urging the Gujjars and the Muslims to come together to vote especially if they could ‘come together to rob’.
Khan had, however, dismissed the video and called it doctored. She said that the video is a conspiracy of her political rivals.
Zahida Khan’s husband Jalish Khan was the prime accused in the infamous Bharatpur gangrape case where a Dalit girl was allegedly raped by some men for about 15 days. Zahida Khan, who is a law graduate from the University of Delhi, had written a letter to the then Rajasthan Chief Minister of Rajasthan denying the allegations of rape against her husband. The rape survivor had also alleged that she was being threatened of dire consequences if she did not withdraw the case. She was also allegedly offered Rs 1 crore to ‘settle’ the case.
