Ashok Gehlot’s new avatar is fiery, will do anything to protect his 4 decades of politics

Those close to the Rajasthan CM say the new aggression is very unlike him. But Ashok Gehlot is more committed to his politics now that he is being challenged by a young Congress leader.

File photo of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot may be the son of a magician, but he is not going to vanish from the stage so easily, as his detractors may wish. He has a mutiny on his hands by his now-sacked deputy, Sachin Pilot, but he is still holding his own ground, not shying away from issuing bold statements. On Friday, Gehlot ‘lay siege’ at governor Kalraj Mishra’s residence, in an attempt to show his strength when the latter is refusing to convene the assembly session.

From calling Pilot “nikamma” (useless) to accusing governor Mishra of delaying tactics to urging his MLAs to behave in a Gandhian way, the Rajasthan CM is using every trick in his political toolbox. For this reason, Ashok Gehlot is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.

A ‘smart’ politician

In 1985, soon after his appointment as the president of Rajasthan Congress for the first time, Ashok Gehlot, aged 34, went to meet party bigwigs — then Chief Minister Hari Dev Joshi and his predecessor Shiv Charan Mathur among others — to seek their ‘blessings’.

With folded hands and head bowed in front of senior leaders, Gehlot said, “Hoon toh main aap hi ka bachcha, aapke aashirwad se hi kaam kar paunga (I am your child after all, I can work only with your blessings).”

Gehlot would go on to become Congress’ Rajasthan president two more times after that — in 1994 and 1997 — and eventually rise up to acquire the position of CM in 1999.

“He was smart that way. He knew the only way to rise up the ladder is to work with the people who are your seniors in the state, and not be confrontational with them or antagonise them,” Ramesh Borana, former advisor to Ashok Gehlot, told ThePrint.

Gehlot’s life could be read as a textbook example of an outsider cracking the system and making it to the highest echelons of power. But Gehlot, self-admittedly, would have pursued the same career path as his father — that of a magician — had he not been spotted by former PM Indira Gandhi early on in his youth. The Jodhpur-born caught Gandhi’s eye when, as a party worker, he played an active role in helping the post-1971 war refugees settle in northeastern states.

A student of law at Jodhpur University, Gehlot was elected as Rajasthan president of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) in 1973. It was in this capacity that Gehlot stood out to the high command, earning his first Lok Sabha ticket in 1977.

The Congress’ move had ‘risk’ written all over it: Gehlot wasn’t a Rajput or a Jat — the traditional vote-catching castes in Rajasthan — but came from the Mali community. He didn’t carry a degree from an elite institute, and the English language didn’t roll off his tongue smoothly — overall, Gehlot stood in stark contrast to many Congress leaders at the time.

Gehlot lost the election to the Janata Party candidate. Despite this, the Congress gave him another chance in 1980 and he was elected to Parliament from Jodhpur constituency. Since then, Gehlot has won four Lok Sabha elections and been a central minister thrice.

‘Outsmarted’ the Chanakya 

In an Off the Cuff episode of ThePrint, about a month before Sachin Pilot’s rebellion, Ashok Gehlot hit out at the Congress’ impatient ‘younger generation’ for its unwillingness to go through the same struggle as the old guard did in their early years. He also indicated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to destabilise his government.

“At a time when the nation was facing the coronavirus pandemic, they (BJP) were busy breaking the Madhya Pradesh government. I am aware of them making similar efforts in Rajasthan too but we will face them confidently,” he had said.

In the run-up to the Rajya Sabha election in June, Gehlot shifted Congress MLAs to a resort. Many argued that he was being over-cautious and his anxieties were making him act hastily, but an aide close to him said that Gehlot wanted to “pre-empt” any crisis.

“He always thinks two steps ahead of others. In the last 18 months, he has seen enough of Pilot to understand what he was capable of,” the aide said. “So, people may perceive (Home Minister) Amit Shah as the Chanakya, but Gehlot outsmarted him,” the aide added.

Even against his former deputy, Gehlot has adopted a stance uncommon for chief ministers. Throughout the crisis, while Pilot has not publicly said anything anti-Congress and maintained that he was not joining the BJP, Gehlot has not minced his words in making his disdain for Pilot a common knowledge.

He has called Pilot a “nikamma”, a “nakaara” who “wasn’t doing anything… just making people fight”. This came after a rather unsavoury jibe at the young leader’s perceived image. “Speaking good English, giving good quotes and being handsome isn’t everything,” Gehlot had said last week, without naming Pilot.

Analysts say Gehlot’s outburst is in many ways unprecedented.

“He has always been very soft-spoken. In the 20 years that I have known him, I have never seen him this aggressive, this is a different avatar,” Anil Sharma, political analyst told ThePrint.

But Sharma is quick to argue that Gehlot’s ‘aggression’ today is not as much his as it is the party high-command’s. “I think he has been asked to use such language in order to provoke Pilot to issue a statement. So far, Pilot has kept quiet,” Sharma said.

Either way, party leaders are worried. “This personal dogfight between Gehlot and Pilot is taking a very dangerous and really unseemly personal characteristic. This can’t be good for the party,” senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar told ThePrint.

Taking his due

When the Congress returned to power in Rajasthan in 2018, media analysis of the party’s performance largely revolved around Sachin Pilot, who was widely held responsible for reviving the state unit and becoming the face of Congress’ election victory. Even leaders in the party began to see new prospects, enthused by a ‘young turk’ leading the campaign and bringing favourable results.

“He (Pilot) took all the credit for the victory. He would refuse to meet with people in the party who were close to Gehlot. Pilot was good at media management and that made Gehlot furious,” a leader said.

For Gehlot, this amounted to a repudiation of his work he had done in Rajasthan over three decades. And so, what could have been nipped in the bud soon became a toxic ego battle.

Not everyone believes in Pilot magic, though.

“Twelve Congress candidates lost their deposits, 17 candidates came third (in the 2018 assembly election). Many candidates who weren’t given tickets by Pilot left the party, fought independently and won. So, Pilot’s hard work is often overstated,” Narayan Bareth, a senior journalist and political analyst from Rajasthan, said.

It is true that when in opposition, Gehlot spent most of his time carrying out his duties as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of training and organisation — a post he was given in March 2018, just months before the assembly election in Rajasthan.

Pilot, on the other hand, spent time at the Congress’ Jaipur office, attempting to carve a niche for himself as the party’s state president and projecting himself as a ‘Gujjar’ leader.

Despite this, of the seven Gujjar MLAs in the Congress, only two are in the Pilot camp while five continue to support Gehlot.

A Rajasthan Congress leader said that Gehlot’s language for Pilot — “very unlike him” — only shows how the CM has been “pushed over the edge”.

Continuing to build 

There is an understated pride in Ashok Gehlot’s admission of the amount of time — “chaalis saal” (40 years) — he has spent in politics. It’s meant to signify he has learnt all the tricks and trade of the business.

An important part of the learning has been to value the seniors — a maxim he can be often seen imparting to the Congress’ younger generation, both in words and actions. Last month, Gehlot announced a scheme providing nutritious food to the poor at concessional rates, and named it ‘Indira Rasoi Yojana’, after his first ‘political guru’. He said the scheme was launched to ensure that “no one sleeps hungry” in the state.

Gehlot’s special emphasis on food for the poor isn’t new. He gained great goodwill during his first tenure when he sent sacks of wheat to BPL (below poverty line) families after the state was hit by a severe drought. More recently, to compensate for the job losses due to Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown, Gehlot wrote to PM Modi urging him to increase the employment limit under the MGNREGS from 100 to 200 days.

A vegetarian, teetotaller and Parle-G lover, Gehlot describes himself as a ‘Gandhian’ — and wants other Congress leaders, especially the younger lot, to adopt its ways. But this Gehlot in “a different avatar” won’t mind putting his ‘astute’ and ‘shrewd’ politician side to the core.

The new Gehlot wouldn’t settle for anything less than what he thinks he deserves, even if his insistence might come across as bordering on stubbornness. For instance, analyst Anil Sharma said, “Gehlot wouldn’t delegate the work of any important ministry to anyone who is not a loyalist”.

After four decades in politics, Ashok Gehlot isn’t out to create something new for himself but build on what he has created. Gehlot’s closest aides say that it was his first letterhead, with the stamp of Rajasthan Congress president, that gave him a social standing that he has grown to value too much. He isn’t about to start giving it up now — let alone have an ambitious young leader take it away from him in an instant.

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