New Delhi: The Rajasthan leadership issue once again resurfaced in the grand old party on Wednesday after AICC in-charge Ajay Maken resigned from his post as he was frustrated over the high command’s indecision in the case of three rebels. The three rebels, minister Shanti Kumar Dhariwal, chief whip Mahesh Joshi and state tourism development corporation chief Dharmendra Rathore, had been served a show cause notice in September after over 90 MLAs loyal to chief minister Ashok Gehlot had refused to facilitate a change of guard in Rajasthan.
The Gehlot loyalists had rebelled as they were against the high command’s attempts to install Sachin Pilot as the new chief minister and rather wanted one of their own to get the top executive post. The MLAs had rebelled on Sep 25 by holding a separate meeting when Maken and veteran Mallikarjun Kharge had visited Jaipur to oversee the change of guard desired by then Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The change had been necessitated as Sonia had proposed the name of Gehlot for the next Congress president. However, the Rajasthan rebellion forced her to change her plans and bring in Kharge as the candidate for the next party president.
The decision on Rajasthan was left for the new party president to decide after Gehlot said sorry to Sonia for not being able to get a one-line resolution authoring the Congress to choose the new chief minister, passed. The notices were sent to the three Gehlot loyalists to put pressure on Gehlot, who was reluctant to give up the chief ministerial post. However, the decision on Rajasthan leadership change was put on the backburner as the party’s focus shifted to the crucial Gujarat assembly elections for which Sonia had named Gehlot as the AICC observer.
Over the past weeks, Gehlot had been visiting Gujarat regularly and had addressed several rallies to push the Congress campaign against the BJP. According to party insiders, the new party chief Kharge faces a catch 22 type situation as it may not be prudent for him to take a decision on Rajasthan leadership change before the Gujarat polling takes place on Dec 1 and Dec 5. The results would be out on Dec 8.
Another difficult choice that Kharge faces in Rajasthan is that the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra is reaching the state in December and again it may not be desirable to go in for a leadership change next month which might precipitate a political crisis. Further, in January 2023 the Congress president would be preparing for the Budget Session of Parliament to take on the Centre and he may not like to give an issue to the BJP on the platter to target the grand old party.
Sensing all this, Sachin Pilot had recently urged Kharge to address the issue of Rajasthan rebels on priority while noting that discipline should be paramount in the party. The young leader had made the comments a day after PM Modi had praised Gehlot. Pilot had compared the praise with PM’s earlier appreciation for veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad, who left the grand old party a few months ago. Over the past years, Maken had been batting for Pilot as the new chief minister to steer the party and the government ahead of the 2023 assembly polls. On their part, both Pilot and Gehlot had highlighted how the Congress needed to work hard to break the trend of a change of government every five years in Rajasthan. The Gehlot-Pilot rivalry is not new. It has existed in the state unit for years.
The Congress had lost the 2013 assembly polls when Gehlot was chief minister. Later, Rahul Gandhi deputed Pilot as the new state unit chief to regroup the party in the state. Pilot worked hard to re-strengthen the organization and was able to bring the Congress back to power in 2018 when he had been assured of the chief ministerial post by Rahul Gandhi, who was then party president. However, the wily politician Gehlot was able to pip a much younger Pilot and managed to become the chief minister. Pilot was then asked to settle as his deputy and wait for his turn.
Over the years, as Pilot got sidelined in the Gehlot government, the young leader led a rebellion of sorts in 2020. Gehlot used the opportunity to allege that Pilot was playing the game of BJP and managed to get him removed as both deputy CM and state unit chief. Since then, Pilot, who was assured by Rahul Gandhi to wait for his turn, urged the high command to address the issue several times but in vain.
An attempt was made in 2021 to accommodate some of the Pilot loyalists in the state government but Pilot was not fully content. All through these years, Pilot kept pointing out that he only wanted to strengthen the party in the state and was not playing into the hands of the BJP, as the Gehlot camp alleged. Kharge will now have to look for Maken’s replacement soon.
