The deaths of two Sahariya tribal children in Jhalawar last month have become a full-blown political controversy in Rajasthan.
The deaths of two Sahariya tribal children in Jhalawar last month have become a full-blown political controversy in Rajasthan, with allegations of malnutrition and neglect flying thick and fast.
Jhalawar was Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's Lok Sabha seat. It is currently held by her son Dushyant Singh. But even there, Sahariyas remain among the most backward tribal groups of Rajasthan, with one of the worst records of infant and maternal health.
The Congress, pepped up by its performance in the recently concluded by-elections in the state, has lost no time in taking up the issue. The party alleges that the children have died of malnourishment and neglect.
The BJP claims they were suffering from diarrhoea. And to counter the charge of neglect, they point to the state government's new malnourishment treatment centres, where underweight children, they say, are receiving the best possible treatment.
Even the parents of the two deceased children say they had been ailing. "My child had diarrhoea and the doctor gave him medicines. But he never got well," said Shivraj, the father of one of the children.
But state Congress President Sachin Pilot, who visited the area, said, "The children have died of hunger and malnourishment and the government is trying to bury the facts."
Not just two, the party alleges as many as five children have died in the last month alone. The government, it says, is engineering a cover-up by filling the wards off the Baran hospital with Sahariya children.
The number of underweight children admitted in the hospital is certainly rising fast. Two weeks ago, it was 23. Now the figure is now 87.
Doctors say most of them are suffering from fever, diarrhoea or pneumonia - a result of poverty, poor nutrition and low immunity.
The sahariyas had been allotted a special package from the state government - 35 kg of wheat, 2 kg of pulses and 2 kg of oil and 1 kg of ghee. But the Vasundhara Raje government has stopped the rations as the scheme is under review.