Rattled by the caste rioting in her state over her pre-election reservation promise to Gujjars, embattled Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje appears to have distanced herself from politics over quotas.
A year ahead of assembly elections in Rajasthan, where Meenas make up a larger part of the state's population, she has found protests by the Gujjar community for classification as a scheduled tribe as a jolt to the state's development.
'Rajasthan has to keep pace with the rest of the world. But development suffers a jolt if there are agitations that lead towards backwardness. Therefore, my priority during the Gujjar agitation was how to get out of this darkness,' RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya quoted her as saying.
Raje, who is believed to be under fire from her own party colleagues in the BJP for her handling of the Gujjar protests, instead suggested political leaders were now required to understand that reservations were 'no final solution' to social inequalities.
In a bid to seek re-election next year on a development plank, the chief minister said she aimed to create an atmosphere free of reservation needs in her state.
'Our strategy will be to create such an atmosphere in the state where everybody gets an opportunity to move ahead without any discrimination and without any crutches (of reservation),' Raje said when asked about her future plans.
She claimed Rajasthan would soon be so developed that nobody would feel the need to have reservations in any field.
