Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma took part in the “EK Ped Maa Ke Naam” campaign on Wednesday, announcing a major initiative to plant over one crore trees across the state. He outlined an ambitious goal of planting seven crore trees as part of the ‘Hariyalo Rajasthan Festival.’ Sharma highlighted the festival’s cultural importance and its role in enhancing environmental sustainability.

On Thursday, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot shared a newspaper clipping on X, featuring a photograph from the “EK Ped Maa Ke Naam” campaign. The image showed women hanging empty bags with Gehlot’s photo on trees. These bags were from the Congress government’s free ration kit.

“This tree should be named after the people of Rajasthan, not Gehlot. It is the government’s duty to provide social security to the public using their tax money, and I have made efforts to fulfill this duty as Chief Minister,” Gehlot wrote on X.

“I hope that along with the tree planting programme, the current BJP government will introduce schemes like the Annapurna ration kit to provide relief to poor and middle-class families in this time of inflation,” he added.

Last year, the former CM had launched the Annapurna Food Packet Scheme, aimed at distributing food packets to over 10.4 million families for free each month. This scheme was part of the Rs 19,000 crore ‘Inflation Relief Package’ announced in the state budget for 2023-24, to ease the burden of rising prices.

Each food packet contained one kilogram each of chana dal, sugar, salt, one litre soybean refined edible oil, 100 gm each of chilli powder and coriander powder, and 50 gm of turmeric.

Gehlot had defended his government’s public welfare schemes saying they weren’t freebies, but were executed with “excellent” financial management.

In the 2023 assembly elections, the BJP won 115 of the 200 seats, while the Congress secured 70 seats.