Rajasthan’s ‘waitology’ era: Projects stuck in limbo under BJP govt

The BJP government in Rajasthan that took office in December 2023 has turned out to be notoriously indecisive, former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has pointed out. The new government, he says, has struggled to take decisions even on renaming institutions built or initiated by the previous Congress administration.

Projects have been starved of funds or are awaiting administrative approvals, Gehlot claimed, adding in a lighter vein that the BJP appears to specialise in indecision or "intezar shastra (the science of waiting)". Amused party workers have coined the term ‘waitology’ to mock the government.

The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Social Sciences (MIGSS), conceived on the lines of Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences, remains non-functional because the Rajasthan government wants to change its name from Mahatma Gandhi to Deendayal Upadhyay, Gehlot claimed.

The imposing institute building was constructed at a cost of Rs 233 crore on Jaipur’s Jawaharlal Nehru Marg, which leads to Jaipur international airport. Tourists and visitors often stop to admire the structure, which blends modern, Rajput and Mughal architectural styles. However, the building remains locked and out of bounds to the public.

Sources claim chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma's government is keen to convert the institute into another Deendayal Upadhyay Research Institute and is exploring the possibility of integrating it with the Deendayal Upadhyay Institute of Archaeology in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Renaming the institute after Deendayal Upadhyay or other BJP or RSS figures could invite criticism and opposition, which may explain the hesitation and delay, the sources added.

Gehlot has also expressed concern over the government’s indecision regarding the new super-speciality indoor-patients department attached to Jaipur’s Sawai Man Singh Hospital, one of Rajasthan’s largest public hospitals.

The project, originally estimated at Rs 400 crore, has seen costs escalate to Rs 746 crore before work was halted, reportedly due to funding constraints. The 1,200-bed hospital project remains stalled. Another indoor-patients department with 500 beds, along with a 50-bed ICU for women at Sanganeri Gate in Jaipur, built at a projected cost of Rs 117 crore, is also awaiting completion.

Gehlot has listed a dozen such projects, many of them satellite hospitals across Rajasthan, which he says appear to have been abandoned by the BJP government.

Even a railway overbridge in Jaipur’s Civil Lines area near Lok Bhawan (Raj Bhawan), construction of which began under the previous Congress government in 2021, remains incomplete, turning the area into an accident-prone zone.

Gehlot also pointed to the proposed world’s largest cricket stadium in Jaipur, work on which has been stalled since 2023. One possible reason, he suggested, is that the BJP government does not want the project to overshadow the Narendra Modi Stadium (formerly B.R. Ambedkar Stadium) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Another factor, according to critics, is that the project was initiated when Gehlot’s son was president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA). The RCA had already spent Rs 150 crore on the project.

Most sports bodies in Rajasthan are currently non-functional, with the state government dissolving several ad hoc bodies in succession. A new ad hoc committee has been formed in the RCA with a mandate to hold elections within three months. The panel includes relatives of several BJP leaders, including Mohit Yadav, son of BJP MLA Jaswant Yadav; Ashish Tiwari, son of Rajya Sabha MP Ghanshyam Tiwari; Arjun Beniwal, son of BJP MLA Sanjeev Beniwal; the grandson of BJP leader Chandraraj Singhvi; and the son of state health minister Gajendra Singh Khinwsar.

So far, the Rajasthan government’s explanations have found few takers, even as the perception of indecision continues to stick.