“Kambal nahin bhi milta toh koi dikkat kon thi humein. Bas baat ye thi beizzati ki (It’s not like I was suffering without a blanket. This is about how I was insulted),” says Shakuran Bano.
In her mid-60s, Shakuran isn’t the only one outraged. So are her Hindu neighbours, at the rebuff by former Tonk-Sawai Madhopur MP and BJP leader Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria, of Shakuran and at least four other Muslim women, at a blanket distribution programme organised by him in Tonk’s Kareda Buzurg village; he took away the blankets he had given to some of them, on knowing their religion.
The event was part of Jaunapuria’s outreach ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Ajmer on February 28.
The husband of the Kareda Buzurg sarpanch says there is “bhaari aakrosh (immense anger)” in the village over Jaunapuria’s actions. “More than Muslims, it is Hindus who are angry… We burnt Jaunapuria’s effigy the next day.”
In the video that went viral on Monday, Shakuran is seen leaving as Jaunapuria dismisses her. “The moment they took away the blankets, I got up then and there,” she tells The Indian Express, adding that the organisers told them to “sit aside, sit separately”. “He (Jaunapuria) said those who abuse Modi have no right (to the blankets)… Bura to bahut laga. Koi zaroori tha ki kambal hi dilwana hai (It was very hurtful. Nobody was asking for the blankets).”
Shakuran Bano
Shakuran says she was invited, along with the others, to attend the meeting by a local woman. And that, along with her, four other Muslim women attended. Fasting due to Ramzan, she adds: “So we went. We didn’t know that blankets were to be distributed, those came after we had reached there.”
BJP और RSS की मानवीय दृष्टिकोण और संवेदनाओं की व्याख्या में करुणा की बजाय नफरत झलकती है। एक गरीब, ज़रूरतमंद महिला को कंबल देने से वंचित करना और उसका अपमान करना बेहद निंदनीय और दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण है। धर्म और जाति के आधार पर भेदभाव करना न केवल नैतिक रूप से गलत है, बल्कि संवैधानिक… pic.twitter.com/UyerEGK3gz
— Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) February 23, 2026
Shakuran, who lost her husband Nizam about six years ago, has two sons – Islam, around 50, and Haneef, around 47. Islam lives in nearby Chaksu town, while Haneef and his family, including two sons and a daughter, and Shakuran live in a two-room house in Kareda Buzurg, paying Rs 1,000 as rent per month.
Haneef, who is a blacksmith like his father, says: “Izzat toh kharab ho gayi (It’s a blot on our honour). He shouldn’t have humiliated us.”
The silver lining, adds Haneef, is that the village has rallied around them, “the brotherhood” between them holding strong.
In the video of the event, as Jaunapuria is leaving, a couple of people are heard calling him out, with one saying: “You are taking the blankets back… everyone is equal in a democracy.” Jaunapuria, who has defended his move saying he was distributing blankets in his personal capacity, retorts, “Are the blankets from the government?” The person replies: “You have committed a mistake.”
Says Shakuran: “The Hindus in our village, young men, aetraaz utha liye (objected), telling him (Jaunapuria) that we live here as brothers and sisters. Two-three policemen present also told us we should not have been removed.”
Former BJP MP Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria.
(Screen grab/ @SachinPilot/X)
She says her Hindu neighbours have been telling her they feel bad that “chachi ke saath mein aisa kara (this was done to an elder of the village)”.
Hanuman Chaudhary, the husband of sarpanch Bina Devi Chaudhary, says Jaunapuria’s actions are “condemnable” and that the village, with a small minority of Muslims, has always lived in harmony. According to Hanuman, Muslims form about 3% of the population of the gram panchayat.
“Be it Diwali, Holi, or Eid… we celebrate together… We don’t differentiate… Jaunapuria has tried to vitiate the brotherhood here,” Hanuman says, adding that other small community groups in the village are also apprehensive. “Their concern is that today it has happened with Muslims, tomorrow it can happen with them.”
The Congress’s Tonk district president, Saud Saidi, has demanded that the BJP expel Jaunapuria
BJP leader stands his ground
Jaunapuria repeated to The Indian Express that the blanket distribution was his own initiative. “I keep doing such programmes. We had made a list of about 200 women party workers, and had not invited them (the Muslim women),” the BJP leader says, suggesting that they rushed to the site after hearing that blankets were being given away.
The women had their heads covered and at first he thought they were party workers, he says. But then, Jaunapuria adds, he had a “weham (suspicion)”, which prompted him to ask the women their names. One of the women did so, and after the party’s local leader told him they are Muslim, Jaunapuria says: “I told him, ‘Ye toh galat bula li hain, aise toh uchit nahin hai (The wrong people we have been called, it is not appropriate)’.”
Had the women left with the blankets, Jaunapuria argues, they would have boasted later, “we made a fool of Jaunapuria” “You are already getting government schemes and now you want this too, while our workers are left out! If we give 30-40 blankets to you, then our workers will get angry,” the BJP leader says.
Denying his actions were communal, Jaunapuria claims he has been running a daily “sansad rasoi (community kitchen)” in Tonk for 10-12 years, for patients at the local women and children’s hospital and their families, and that “about half of those who eat are Muslim women”.
“I also give Rs 500 to every person on PM Modi’s birthday. Ek hospital bed par koi Hindu hai, ek bed par Musalman hai… Toh main kahan tak chhantoon? Mere ko sabko hi dena parh raha hai (There may be a Hindu on one hospital bed and Muslim on the other… How much can I segregate? I have no choice but to give it to everyone).”
An MLA from Haryana’s Sohna between 2005 and 2009, and elected to the Lok Sabha from Tonk Sawai Madhopur in 2014 and 2019 before losing in 2024, Jaunapuria also claims he has given blankets to Muslims in the past. Muslim women tie him rakhi, he adds.
In 2020, Jaunapuria made it to the headlines when he recorded a video of himself taking a mud bath, and blowing a conch, saying it would prevent Covid-19. Subsequently, he tested positive for the virus.
As for Shakuran, she has received two blankets since the incident, one from Tonk-based politicians and another from the Rajasthan Congress’s Minority Cell.
With winter on its way out, she has put them away for now.