New Delhi: A lot of comparisons are being made between Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor as the two probable candidates for the post of next Congress president but three important factors go in favour of the former.
Gehlot has been in the party for around five decades, has vast experience in managing organization and elections and is a mass leader besides being a known Gandhi family loyalist. In contrast, Tharoor joined the party in 2009, is not a mass leader, has no experience in managing organization or elections and is not considered to be a Gandhi family loyalist.
According to party insiders, there is one more important difference between the two – while Gehlot has the backing of the Gandhi family as a potential candidate for the post of next party chief, Tharoor has thrown his hat in the ring on his own. Hence, a comparison between the two is being made, they said.
Also read: Cong prez polls: Gandhi family’s 'blessings' to count in Gehlot vs Tharoor contest
For the old-timers, Gehlot has been with the students wing NSUI and Youth Congress, has been an MLA, PCC chief, union minister, AICC general secretary and is serving his third term as chief minister. Though the party lost the 2013 assembly polls when he was Rajasthan chief minister, Gehlot was still known to have a strong control over the party organization.
Between 2014 and 2018, then state unit chief Sachin Pilot worked hard to resurrect the party in Rajasthan but Gehlot had to be roped in before the assembly polls to benefit from his hold over the organization. When the party won in 2018, Sachin was tipped to be the chief minister but Gehlot tipped him in the power game to get the top post.
Later, he won over the six BSP MLAs to get a majority in the assembly but had to accept Sachin as his deputy under pressure from the AICC. In 2020, Gehlot managed to save his government from an alleged coup when Sachin rebelled along with several MLAs. Gehlot alleged that Sachin was playing into the hands of the BJP and used the crisis to take away the post of deputy chief minister and the state unit chief from Pilot.
He then brought in his confidante Govind Singh Dotasara as the new state unit chief to manage both the party and the government with ease. In the June Rajya Sabha elections, Gehlot again proved his mettle as a poll manager when he defeated the BJP’s plans to poach Congress MLAs to ensure the victory of independent candidate Subhash Chandra Goel.
Gehlot secured the party MLAs in a hotel in Udaipur and ensured the BJP did not succeed in its plan. He personally supervised the polling to ensure the three Congress nominees Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tewari, sailed through smoothly. Subsequently, he led the protests against ED summons for Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.
While Sonia Gandhi had made Gehlot in charge of the Gujarat assembly polls in 2017, he has been given the responsibility for the contest this year also as the Congress chief trusts her aide, who has now been picked up for the top party post. In contrast, Tharoor is mostly liked by the English-speaking, upper middle class, urban people, though he has been trying to improve his spoken Hindi in the past years.
The plus in Tharoor’s case is that he has been winning the Lok Sabha polls from Thiruvananthapuram for three consecutive terms though a section of the Kerala leaders has been opposed to him. Besides, he also served as a junior minister in external affairs and human resource development in the UPA government. However, it is true that Tharoor has not held any organizational post either at the state or the AICC level and cannot ensure assembly polls win in his home state Kerala.
Also read: Cong prez polls: Kerala leaders not happy with Tharoor's move to contest
Before joining active politics, he had a distinguished career as an Under Secretary General at the United Nations. In 2006, Tharoor was India’s official nominee in the high-profile elections for the post of UN Secretary-General. He lost to South Korea’s Ban-ki Moon. According to party insiders, though both Gehlot and Tharoor are regional leaders and lack a country-wide appeal, the Rajasthan chief minister enjoys a good rapport with most senior leaders across states as compared to the Thiruvananthapuram MP.
Further, Gehlot is a leader from the OBC category, comes from a humble background, and is a Hindi-speaking leader who is able to project an 'aam aadmi' image. Tharoor in comparison belongs to an upper-caste family and comes from a modern, affluent background. “According to former CWC member Mohsina Kidwai, “The new president should care for the workers and give them access. The person should be able to take everyone along.”
See, the next Congress president should be able to understand the pain and struggles of an ordinary worker besides being a political person. That is an important quality Gehlot has besides his long years,” a senior AICC functionary said on condition of anonymity.
(With inputs from Naveen Jaiswal)
