Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s office on Saturday denounced “some TV channels” for telecasting false and misleading news.
The statement issued by the media advisor to the chief minister said, “Some of the TV channels as usual are airing untrue reports”.
The statement said the reports being shown on TV channels say that the chief minister did not get time from senior party leaders and received no assurance from them.
“These reports are completely untrue and baseless. These are far away from truth. Verify before running or publishing reports,” the statement said, adding that the chief minister had gone to Delhi only to attend the NITI Aayog meeting, after which she returned to Jaipur as there was no pre-scheduled plan to meet anyone in Delhi.
Raje returned to Jaipur on Saturday afternoon after reportedly failing to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah in the wake of charges that she helped former Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi.
The chief minister, who left on Saturday morning to attend a NITI Aayog meeting, spent some time at her house in Delhi before flying back to Jaipur in the afternoon, a source close to Raje said.
Though her office insisted that nothing else, except the NITI Aayog meet, was scheduled in the national capital, political analysts view her failure to meet the BJP’s top leaders as a snub.
BJP sources said Raje, under attack from the opposition which wants her to quit, wanted to meet Prime Minister Modi, Shah as well as Home Minister Rajnath Singh to narrate her side of the story on the Lalit Modi issue.
“It seems that after being denied an audience by the top leadership, she felt it is better to come back to Jaipur,” said a BJP functionary requesting anonymity.
“She will certainly try again to reach out to the central leadership, and may send her close confidants from here (Jaipur) to meet them in the next couple of days,” he added.
The Rajasthan BJP is standing by the chief minister, saying that all the allegations hurled against her are baseless.
Rajasthan Health Minister Rajendra Rathore has said: “The party is fully behind the chief minister. There is no questioning of her resigning.