Rajasthan mess exposes rot in Congress

The Special Operations Group’s notice to Pilot was an ‘enough is enough’ moment for him. Given that it was bound to cause a reaction, it made many wonder whether it was a calculated move by Gehlot to push Pilot, who has been a thorn in his side, out of the party. What is, however, not clear is whether it was done with the blessings of the party high command.

Power games: Ashok Gehlot (left) outmanoeuvred Sachin Pilot in the Congress’ ticket distribution for the 2018 Rajasthan polls.

Neerja Chowdhury

Senior Political Commentator

THE Rajasthan bedlam was waiting to happen. With the sacking of Sachin Pilot as Deputy CM and state party president, the fate of the Ashok Gehlot government has become uncertain. Even if the Rajasthan Chief Minister passes the floor test, the Congress government will now be shaky.

The initiative to bring down the government in Rajasthan has not come from the BJP this time. The trigger for Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot’s revolt was the FIR registered against him by the Special Operations Group, and the charges are no ordinary ones — sedition and conspiracy to bring down the Gehlot government. That the Chief Minister has also received a notice does not hold because the department comes directly under him.

The BJP will undoubtedly fish in troubled waters, and it has already sent income tax teams to raid Gehlot’s associates. But it is ‘waiting’ to see if Pilot really has the support of 30 MLAs, as he has claimed, and is in a position to bring down the government. The BJP can be expected now to step up its efforts to ‘ensnare’ more Congress MLAs into its fold.

The BJP may well be in touch with Sachin Pilot. But Pilot had declared that he is not going to the BJP. Will that change, now that the break has become irretrievable?

What are the options before Sachin Pilot today? He could choose to go the Scindia way, but that will also depend on what the BJP wants. The BJP has brought Scindia into the Rajya Sabha and he may be included in Narendra Modi’s Cabinet. He has also got 14 of his supporters inducted in the Madhya Pradesh Cabinet with weighty portfolios.

Pilot’s goal was different — the CMship of Rajasthan. Even if he dethrones Gehlot, the BJP will find it difficult to make him the CM. It has Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who is no pushover, waiting in the wings. Denied the top job, she may pull out with a group of MLAs. At best, Pilot would be the Deputy CM, a post he already has.

If he launches a regional party, and hopes to head the government, he would need the support of the BJP. There is little that the BJP will gain from such an arrangement. We know the fate of small rumps backed by a larger party, making for highly unstable arrangements.

The third option for Pilot would be to launch his own party, and hit the road nationally with a view to capturing the Congress space. There is need for a leadership which can represent this constituency. Pilot has a tremendous capacity for hard work — he is comfortable sleeping on a charpoy in a village at night, if necessary — and this was evident in the way he revived the Congress in Rajasthan between 2014 and 2018, covering lakhs of kilometres, visiting each constituency more than once.

He also has goodwill. For, whenever the subject came up of a Congress president outside of the Nehru-Gandhi family, people, and their number was not small, would remark, “But why not Scindia or Sachin Pilot?” Scindia has now chosen to walk a different path.

Such an endeavour, however, would need more than just goodwill. It would be a long haul, call for resources and people, an ability to take risks and stay the course. And, above all, to judge the right moment to strike.

The fourth option for Sachin Pilot, which is now foreclosed, was to drive a hard bargain for a better deal within the Congress.

The tension between Gehlot and Pilot had been growing and this was hardly a secret. Apart from the ‘unfairness’ of being denied the CMship in 2018, which was promised to him by Rahul Gandhi if he successfully delivered the state to the Congress, Pilot had repeatedly complained of being systematically marginalised by Gehlot. The ‘power-sharing’ he was promised when he accepted the Deputy CMship has remained illusory. A move was already afoot to get him to part with either the state presidentship of the party or the Deputy CMship.

Gehlot has found Pilot equally difficult. The sharp and experienced politician that he is, Gehlot had managed to outmanoeuvre Sachin in the distribution of tickets in 2018 and the high command plumped for him as CM, given the goodwill he enjoyed in the state.

The revolts by Sachin and Scindia, who were two bright stars in the Congress, reflect the sorry state of affairs in the party today. While senior Congress leaders in their sixties or seventies are prepared to lump their lot, the younger leaders who have 20, 30 years of politics ahead of them are forced to think of other options. For them, it is becoming a marta kya na karta situation.

The Old Guard-versus-Young Turk conundrum in the Congress is not just about senior leaders unwilling to share power with the youngsters. Many younger leaders are no longer prepared to be told to swallow the bitter pill and bide their time. They want to perform, to deliver and be given their due now, not twenty years later. It is about a difference in perception on how to conduct politics, as also about aspirations.

The SOG notice to Pilot was an ‘enough is enough’ moment for him. Given that it was bound to cause a reaction, it made many wonder whether it was a calculated move by Gehlot to initiate a process which would, one way or another, push Pilot, who has been a thorn in his side, out of the party. What is, however, not clear is whether it was done with the blessings of the party high command.

Technically, Sonia Gandhi is the interim president of the party, but she is not keeping well, and it is her old team which is in the saddle. Rahul Gandhi is making many of the decisions, though formally he quit as party chief after the Congress rout in the 2019 General Elections.

Though there is a growing clamour for him to take over again, he has been unwilling so far — unless he is given a free hand to reorganise the party as he wants.

If there is one thing that the Rajasthan affair has underlined, it is that there is no high command in the Congress today. Otherwise, given the import of Rajasthan for the Congress, Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi should have met Sachin Pilot immediately when he arrived in Delhi and sorted out the differences between him and Gehlot within hours.