Two Bharatiya Janata Party legislators in Rajasthan – Habibur Rahman and Kalulal Gurjar – told Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Thursday that a “purification ritual” must be performed in the Assembly building as they fear it is haunted, the Hindustan Times reported.

Talk of the building being located on a cremation ground reportedly began doing the rounds after the deaths of BJP MLAs Kirti Kumari and Kalyan Singh. “The land over which the new building has been built was earlier used as a graveyard or for cremation, and [as a] garbage ground, where god knows what all used to be dumped,” The Times of India quoted Rahman as saying. “People must have buried bodies of children too here. Evil spirits usually roam around such places.”

The five-time MLA said he was part of the committee that had surveyed the land in 1994 after former Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat sanctioned Rs 5 crore for the construction of the new Assembly building. “To address my concerns about it being a graveyard or a cremation land, they got some temples built in the vicinity.”

Rahman claimed that the Assembly has never finished its term without losing a member since it shifted to the new premises in 2001.

The BJP’s chief whip in the Assembly, Kalulal Gurjar, said that the premises need to be “purified”. “I think if the government gets a puja and purification ceremony done and a feast is organised, then any evil spirits can be warded off,” he claimed.

Assembly Secretary Prithviraj, however, dismissed the MLAs’ concerns. “I have worked till late night in the assembly several times and I never felt presence of any ghosts or spirits.”