Rajasthan: 'Major Changes' Expected As Sachin Pilot And Ashok Gehlot Lock Horns Once Again

The Congress has scheduled a meeting on Thursday (13 April) to resolve the ongoing conflict between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Congress leader Sachin Pilot, as per an ANI report.

Sukhjinder Randhawa, Rajasthan Congress-in-charge, met with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in Delhi to discuss the situation. The two leaders will meet with Pilot later today and hear his side of the story.

The meeting followed Pilot’s day-long fast in a protest against inaction of the Gehlot regime against the corruption cases under the previous Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government.

“What will we tell the people when we go to them asking for votes? Six-seven months remain before elections… I have been asking for this for a year,” Pilot said at the protest. 

The party has taken the protest seriously, with Randhawa calling it an “anti-party activity”.

“Congress is fighting against corruption. Pilot should have talked to us first, I would have taken up the issue with CM Gehlot, and if there was no action, then he had the right to protest. Taking the protest route instead of talking with us is not right,” he said. 

As per reports, Kharge also met with Rahul Gandhi to discuss the matter, who will discuss the situation with Sonia Gandhi, and the final decision will rest with Kharge.

The political drama is unfolding months before the State Assembly elections in Rajasthan, scheduled to be held later this year.

Congress, having already lost crucial states like Punjab due to infighting among the state leadership, is looking to resolve the issue as fast as possible. It would not want a repeat of then Chief Minister Amarinder Singh leaving the party months before the state elections. 

A Repeat of the 2020 Conflict

Both Pilot and Gehlot were keen on getting the chief minister’s post when the party won the state elections in 2018. Pilot felt slighted after the party high command went with Gehlot and has been nursing his grievances ever since.

The conflict came to the fore when in July 2020, Pilot along with a section of Congress MLAs rebelled openly against Gehlot and demanded a change in leadership in the state. Back then, Pilot was stripped of his posts of Deputy Chief-Minister and President of the Pradesh Congress Committee.

Both Pilot and Gehlot have been at each other’s throats since then. While, on the one hand, Pilot takes credit for taking the party to victory in the 2018 elections as state president, Gehlot claims to have the support of more MLAs than Pilot does. Being an old-timer in the party and close to the party high command doesn’t hurt Gehlot either.

But in a state that flips between the Congress and BJP every election, prospects of sitting in the opposition for five years, while the national prospects of the party look bleak, might not be enough for an ambitious politician like Pilot.