New Delhi: The third day of filing nominations for the Congress presidential elections ended without a single party leader throwing his/her hat in the ring Monday. This comes at a time when the one question on every party worker’s mind is whether Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, once considered a shoo-in for the job, will file his nomination at all, given the political turmoil in Rajasthan.
Sources in the Congress told ThePrint that party leaders in Delhi are pointing fingers at an “intelligence failure” that has left the All India Congress Committee (AICC) — the party’s apex decision-making body — red-faced. The Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting in Rajasthan, they said, was scheduled way earlier than was necessary and “without homework”.
The meeting eventually did not take place as a majority of Congress MLAs instead congregated at the residence of Gehlot loyalist and state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal Sunday to oppose the candidature of Sachin Pilot as the next CM. They then boarded a bus headed to the residence of Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi.
Cabinet Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, also a staunch Gehlot loyalist, told reporters that as many as 92 Congress MLAs would resign if the party leadership demands Gehlot’s resignation as CM.
Sent to Jaipur to quell the fire engulfing the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (RPCC), the party in-charge of the state, Ajay Maken, along with Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, were served three conditions by MLAs from the Gehlot camp.
The most contentious of these conditions was that the central leadership should take a decision on Gehlot’s successor only after the results of the Congress presidential elections, if held, are announced on 19 October.
AICC observers Maken and Kharge have now returned to Delhi and submitted a report to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, reportedly recommending disciplinary action against the errant MLAs.
ThePrint reached Sachin Pilot over call but did not receive a response at the time of publishing. This report will be updated when a response is received.
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CLP meet ‘premature’
Maken, after meeting the dissenting MLAs in Jaipur, told reporters Monday that Sonia Gandhi has been “briefed in great detail” about the CLP meet and a report will be submitted to her either by Monday night or Tuesday morning. “CLP meeting at 7 pm last evening was called at the behest of the CM [Gehlot] and the time and place were fixed with his consent,” he said.
The AICC general secretary added that “some ministers placed three conditions, one of which was that no decision [on Gehlot’s replacement] should be taken before 19 October”.
“We said that this was a conflict of interest. We told them that never in Congress are talks held in groups and that it is not conducive to free and fair talks. We told them, on the demand that a Gehlot loyalist is chosen as CM, that the Congress president will decide after talking to all. Unfortunately, after all this, the [CLP] meeting could not happen,” he said.
Maken also said that to convene a “parallel meeting when a CLP has been called is primarily an act of indiscipline”.
The CLP meeting in Rajasthan was “premature”, a senior Congress leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity, adding that the MLAs’ decision to skip the meet and congregate elsewhere is an act of “clear indiscipline that calls for action”.
“Why was it [CLP meet] called? If it was called at Gehlot’s behest, why did AICC send observers? That is probably what made the MLAs suspicious. But even if they wanted to meet the observers in groups rather than one-on-one, it would have been better to hear them out,” the leader added.
He further said that the observers were “right” that the condition about deferring the central leadership’s decision on who will be the next Rajasthan chief minister is a “conflict of interest”.
“Should Gehlot win, he would be called upon to decide on his own fate as Rajasthan CM. But to storm out of the state like that has now made it seem like the AICC is a party to the tussle. That would only undermine its authority,” the leader said.
‘Pilot in a hurry’
MLAs who have gone out on a limb for Gehlot also told AICC observers that they are not willing to accept any leader who was part of the purported 2020 rebellion in Rajasthan Congress as chief minister — an apparent reference to Tonk MLA Pilot.
In July 2020, 19 Rajasthan Congress MLAs including Pilot moved to resorts in Manesar in BJP-ruled Haryana after skipping a CLP meet in what was seen as an open rebellion. Pilot and MLAs loyal to him later reunited with the party but not before he was stripped of the posts of deputy chief minister and state Congress chief.
“Gehlot is a very senior leader, his point of view should have been accommodated rather than insisting on ‘one-man, one-post’ and thus precipitating a crisis even before the elections,” said a Congress leader from Rajasthan who did not wish to be named.
Adding that Pilot “has age on his side”, the leader said he “should not be in a hurry to become chief minister”.
“Nobody can wipe out the fact that he [Pilot] had attempted to destabilise the government just two years ago. MLAs will take time to forget that. He should wait, work in the party and regain that trust instead of pushing too hard too soon. People will forget over time,” the leader said.
However, Chaksu MLA and alleged Pilot loyalist Ved Prakash Solanki claimed that many Congress MLAs are “now coming back into the fold and some are saying they did not even realise what they had been made to sign” Sunday.
“It is all shant (calm) and good in Jaipur now. People will fall in line. It will be the high command that will decide on the next chief minister,” Solanki told ThePrint.
Asked if he would accept Gehlot as party president (should he contest) and as chief minister, Solanki reiterated the quintessential Congress trope: “Whatever the high command decides will happen.”
Meanwhile, Congress sources said developments in Jaipur may have altered the equation between Gehlot and the Gandhis and with it, his chances of becoming Congress president with Sonia Gandhi’s tacit approval.
Opinion is divided on whether Gehlot engineered the “dissension” or whether it was his loyalists who exceeded the brief.
“The way it works is that now, he [Gehlot] is answerable to the [Gandhi] family but once he is elected, he will be the boss. Whoever becomes party president runs the party according to his or her own ideas, not on a remote control,” said another Congress leader, who did not wish to be named.
The leader added, “Whether he [Gehlot] files the nomination is a key question. Personally, I feel he will, having invested so much mentally into this.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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