Independent councillor Kusum Yadav appointed acting mayor of Jaipur Heritage Municipal Corporation

Jaipur, Sep 24 (PTI) Independent councillor Kusum Yadav was on Tuesday appointed as the acting mayor of the Jaipur Heritage Municipal Corporation, a day after Mayor Munesh Gurjar was suspended over bribery charges.

According to an order of the local self-government department, Yadav's tenure will be for two months.

"It will be my priority to work on zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and to make the heritage municipal corporation neat and clean," Yadav told reporters after the appointment.

During the councillor elections, the BJP denied a ticket to Kusum Yadav after which she contested the election as an independent and became a councillor.

However, after winning the election, Yadav supported the BJP.

Kusum Yadav, who is serving as a councillor in the Municipal Corporation for the second time, is the wife of BJP worker Ajay Yadav.

The Rajasthan government on Monday suspended Jaipur Heritage Municipal Corporation's Mayor Munesh Gurjar who is facing corruption charges and ordered a judicial inquiry against her.

On August 4 last year, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) raided Munesh Gurjar's house where her husband Sushil Gurjar and two brokers, Narayan Singh and Anil Dubey, were arrested with a bribe amount of Rs 2 lakh.

The raid also uncovered lease-related files and Rs 41 lakh cash at the Gurjar residence and Rs 8.95 lakh at broker Narayan Singh's residence.

The investigation confirmed the corruption allegations against Mayor Gurjar.

A day after the raid, Munesh Gurjar, then a Congress councillor, was suspended by the former Congress government from the post of mayor.

However, she challenged the suspension order twice and got relief from the high court.

The ACB, during its investigation, found involvement of Munesh Gurjar in corruption, following which the bureau sought prosecution sanction to file a chargesheet against her.

Prosecution sanction against Munesh Gurjar was given by the BJP government a few days ago.

The Congress has a majority in the Jaipur Heritage Municipal Corporation. PTI AG RPA