With the Congress having elected its new president, focus is now expected to shift to Rajasthan which has been witnessing long-running differences between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot on who gets to call the shots.
Significantly, both Gehlot and his former deputy Pilot separately met Mallikarjun Kharge after he was elected as the president of the Congress, getting 7,897 votes against his rival Shashi Tharoor’s 1,072.
The tensions between Gehlot and Pilot seem to be simmering with the former earlier this week, saying that there is no substitute for experience at any level.
Gehlot suggested that young leaders should have patience as they would get their chances when the time comes.
Though Gehlot slammed leaders such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, R P N Singh and Jitin Parsada, who left the Congress to join the BJP, as “opportunists” and pointed out that all of them became Union ministers at a young age, many saw it as a veiled swipe at Pilot.
The Rajasthan infighting had played out in full public glare last month when Gehlot was set to enter the fray in the Congress presidential poll. The matter had come to a head after 82 Congress MLAs in Rajasthan did not attend an official legislature party meeting convened for passing a resolution authorising the Congress chief to appoint a successor to Gehlot, who was then about to contest the Congress presidential election, and participated in a parallel meeting at Gehlot loyalist Shanti Dhariwal’s residence in Jaipur.
While Gehlot has long been known as a loyalist to the first family of the country’s oldest party, his position as the Gandhis’ confidant is said to have been dented with the developments last month. Pilot, who had rebelled against Gehlot’s leadership in 2020, is seen as an agent of change, just like Tharoor, who many say put up a spirited fight for the top Congress post but had fallen short when it came to winning the ‘loyalty’ tag.
With the Congress presidential polls now over, focus is back on the Rajasthan duel. A senior leader said the family is not very keen on Gehlot continuing as the chief minister, after he defied the diktat for him being a party president candidate and quitting his post but Gandhis are not completely convinced of Pilot either.
There is also a possibility that the party may decide that neither Gehlot nor Pilot get the charge of Rajasthan, which will anyway go to polls next year and the BJP has been trying hard to come back to power there. The party sources also pointed out that Gehlot has joined Rahul Gandhi a lot more times in the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the incumbent chief minister remains on good terms with the Gandhis.
He was also present at the Congress’ rally in Karnataka’s Bellary on Saturday. However, there is a counter view that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi are a lot more comfortable with Pilot, while the old guard, including the interim party president Sonia Gandhi and the favourite in the party presidential election, Kharge, have better equations with Gehlot.
Activity on Rajasthan has been going on behind the scenes even as the spotlight remains on the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the party’s presidential polls, with the three loyalists of Gehlot — ministers Dhariwal and Mahesh Joshi and party leader Dharmendra Rathore — having replied to the show-cause notice issued by the Congress disciplinary committee over the rebellion by a large group of MLAs. The disciplinary committee is likely to hold its meeting soon to discuss further steps in the matter.
The party’s disciplinary committee had sent the notices after Congress observers Kharge and Ajay Maken submitted their written report to party chief Sonia Gandhi charging the three state leaders with “gross indiscipline”.
The Congress disciplinary panel’s member secretary Tariq Anwar in the notice to Dhariwal, Joshi and Rathore had referred to Maken’s report. The matter had reached an impasse as legislators loyal to Gehlot wanted that if he is replaced, any of the 102 MLAs who supported the Gehlot government during the crisis in July 2020 should be elected chief minister.
In July 2020, the then Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, along with 18 of his supporting MLAs, revolted against the leadership of Gehlot. Gehlot had last month apologised to Congress president Sonia Gandhi for not being able to get the one-line resolution passed in Jaipur, authorising the president to pick his replacement.
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