Former minister and Congress MLA Rajendra Gudha on Sunday said he had saved Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot from trouble but was removed without being given an opportunity to explain himself.
"If Rajendra Gudha was not there, the chief minister would have been in jail," he claimed at a programme in Jhunjhunu district.
Speaking to media persons, he claimed that he had secured a "red diary" on the directions of the chief minister during a raid by the ED and Income Tax Department against Congress leader Dharmendra Rathore.
"The chief minister called and asked me to retrieve the 'red diary' at any cost," he claimed, without going into details of the diary's contents.
He claimed the chief minister had repeatedly asked him if he had burnt the diary and added the CM would not have done so if there was nothing incriminating in it.
The BJP latched on to his statement to target the ruling Congress in the state.
"Rajendra Guddha makes sensational disclosure about a Red Diary that contains the alleged black deeds of Congress- Gehlot Govt.
"Will those who know the truth about the black deeds of corruption and women atrocities now answer about this?" BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla tweeted.
Gudha, who held charge as Minister of State for Sainik Kalyan (Independent Charge), Home Guard and Civil Defence, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development, has been targeting Gehlot following his sacking on Friday evening, hours after he cornered his government in the Assembly over the issue of crimes against women in the state.
Addressing the programme in Jhunjhunu on Sunday, Gudha said he would have resigned had the chief minister asked him to do so.
"If you had asked me to resign, I would have resigned...you should have called and given a notice," he said.
He said that judges also give a chance before taking action.
Gudha, who is among six MLAs who won the 2018 assembly election on a BSP ticket before defecting to the Congress in September 2019, was inducted as a minister in November 2021.
They had supported Gehlot in July 2020 during his tussle with his then-deputy Sachin Pilot. However, in the last few months, Gudha has made statements in favour of Pilot.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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