Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma landed a pointed broadside against the previous Congress administration on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, accusing it of betraying both farmers and students during its five-year rule — and naming paper leaks as the weapon that robbed an entire generation of its future.

Posting on X, CM Sharma wrote: 'Kaangresk ke kaaryakaal mein kisaanon ke hiton ki andekhi hui aur yuvaon ke bhavishy ke saath khilvaad kiya gaya.' ('During the Congress tenure, the interests of farmers were ignored and the future of the youth was toyed with.') He went further, charging that collusion with paper-leak networks and 'nakal mafia' (cheating syndicates) inflicted serious damage on the talent and dreams of hardworking students.

The paper-leak years: REET, constable exams, and a state under scrutiny

The accusations are not made in a vacuum. Between 2018 and 2023, Rajasthan's competitive recruitment examinations — most notably the Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET) and successive police constable recruitment tests — were repeatedly rocked by paper-leak allegations. Aspirants who had spent years preparing found results cancelled, timelines stretched, and careers derailed. The political cost for the then-Congress government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was significant, and the controversy carried into the 2023 assembly elections that ultimately returned the BJP to power in Jaipur.

Farmers left behind: the agricultural grievance angle

Alongside the examination integrity issue, Sharma trained his sights on agrarian policy, arguing that the Congress government systematically sidelined farmer welfare. Rajasthan's farm economy — spanning arid western districts to rain-dependent eastern belts — remained a central voter concern throughout the Gehlot era, with complaints about delayed crop-insurance payouts and inadequate procurement support surfacing repeatedly in that period.

A familiar BJP playbook, sharpened for Rajasthan

This kind of retrospective accountability framing is a recognisable feature of post-power-transition politics across India. After the BJP reclaimed Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in recent election cycles, new state administrations similarly used predecessor-Congress failures on recruitment and agrarian promises as a political baseline. In Rajasthan, the tactic serves a dual purpose: it keeps the opposition on the defensive while signalling to students and farmers — two of the state's largest vote-blocs — that the current government sees their grievances as legitimate and unresolved.

With recruitment calendars for the current BJP government now under the spotlight, voters will be watching closely to see whether new exam integrity mechanisms match the sharpness of the political rhetoric.