Rajasthan: Congress's desert storm blows over as Gehlot, Pilot sing unity tune

Six months ahead of the Rajasthan Assembly polls, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bitter intra-party rival, Tonk MLA Sachin Pilot, have ostensibly agreed to an armistice. Though the exact terms of the truce agreement between the Congress’s warring satraps from the desert state weren’t immediately known, the party announced late Monday (May 29) night that Gehlot and Pilot would “fight the election unitedly” and “win the state”.

The announcement came after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge met Gehlot and Pilot at his 10, Rajaji Marg residence in Delhi to find an amicable resolution to their escalating turf war that had, over the past three years, threatened the stability of the party’s Rajasthan government and made the prospects of a consecutive poll victory later this year look extremely bleak.

Also read: ‘Jan jan ke mukhyamantri’: Congress’ tweet for Gehlot amid Pilot’s yatra

With former party chief Rahul Gandhi, Rajasthan in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, and general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal in attendance, Kharge met Gehlot at around 6 pm.

Sources close to the CM told The Federal that over the next two hours, Gehlot minced no words in detailing how Pilot’s repeated attacks at his government were “based on lies intended to damage the party’s poll prospects” while also reiterating past allegations about the Tonk MLA’s failed bid of July 2020 to “topple the Congress government with the help of the BJP”.

Congress leadership convince Gehlot to live and let live

The Congress leadership is learnt to have impressed upon Gehlot that Pilot has his own pockets of influence across Rajasthan and that some of the concerns he had raised had merit. Gehlot, sources say, was urged to be more accommodating of his junior “in the larger interest of the party” but was also assured by Kharge and Rahul that he would not be replaced by Pilot as the CM for the remainder of his current term.

The Rajasthan CM, on his part, told the party high command that “any legitimate issues” raised by Pilot would be addressed by him on priority, but also made it clear that this cooperation would work only if Pilot stopped attacking the state government and refrained from indulging in “theatrics” such as his recent hunger strike and padayatra over the issue of the state government’s alleged inaction in corruption cases involving the previous BJP government and its CM, BJP veteran Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

Also read: Jan Sangharsh Yatra: Sachin Pilot calls for change in RPSC, march enters second day

Randhawa, who a month ago had further fanned the acrimony between the warring leaders by issuing a threat of disciplinary action against Pilot over his hunger strike, is learnt to have agreed with Gehlot on most issues. Yet, both Gehlot and Randhawa did concede that Pilot’s departure from the Congress, something that has been intensely speculated about in recent months, would hurt the party electorally.

Gehlot, though, remained opposed to the idea of naming Pilot as the Rajasthan Congress chief again – one of the proposals the Congress high command had in mind to appease the restive Tonk MLA – and argued that this would “send a wrong message” to the nearly 100 MLAs who had stood firmly with the party during Pilot’s failed coup of July 2020. Having laid all his concerns against Pilot on the table and asserting that he had, in September last, also apprised then interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of his views, Gehlot did finally assure Kharge and Rahul that he would accept whatever decision the high command took with regard to his rival’s rehabilitation if they felt doing so would help the party retain power in Rajasthan.

Pilot advised to raise issues at the ‘appropriate party forum’

It was after these detailed discussions that Pilot was asked by the leadership to join the meeting at Kharge’s residence. Pilot arrived at 10, Rajaji Marg around 8.30 pm. This was the first occasion since the Bharat Jodo Yatra’s Rajasthan leg of December last year that Gehlot and Pilot were meeting the Congress leadership together.

Pilot is learnt to have reiterated allegations that he has been making against the Gehlot government for months now on issues such as corruption, exam paper leak, farmer distress, and increasing social strife in the state, among others. Sources said Pilot also alleged that the CM, his office, most senior bureaucrats of the state, and Rajasthan PCC president Govind Singh Dotasra deliberately did not act on any issue raised by him or the party MLAs and leaders who were perceived to be his loyalists.

Also read: Pilot, Gehlot supporters clash at Congress meeting in Ajmer

Kharge and Rahul, sources say, counselled Pilot about the need to “respect party discipline” and advised him firmly to raise any issue he has against the CM, state government, or the PCC chief “at the appropriate party forum”. The Congress president (CP), sources say, also pointed out that his doors were always open to all party leaders and if Pilot had any pressing matters that needed intervention of the central leadership, he should bring them to the CP’s attention, or take them up with Randhawa or Venugopal.

Pilot assured he is the ‘future face of Congress in Rajasthan’

It is learnt that though Kharge and Rahul were critical of Pilot’s attacks on Gehlot and the state government, the duo also repeatedly asserted that they saw him as a valuable asset to the party and the “future face of the Congress in Rajasthan”. While they implored Pilot to “work with Gehlot to strengthen the Congress” and break Rajasthan’s decades-old tradition of voting out an incumbent government every five years, Rahul also assured the Tonk MLA that every effort would be made to ensure that “your self-respect, dignity, and contribution to the party are not undermined in any way”. At one point, Rahul is learnt to have told Pilot to “leave your concerns with me… let Kharge ji and me worry about them”.

At the end of the over-four-hour discussions, Gehlot and Pilot are said to have assured the party high command that neither of them would escalate tensions any further and would “work as a team”.

Also read: Rajasthan: Amid Sachin Pilot’s stir threat, rumours say he’ll quit Cong next month

Venugopal told reporters that the two Rajasthan leaders had “left it to the high command” to decide who would lead the party’s poll campaign in the state when it goes to polls this November. Sources said both Gehlot and Pilot were told by the leadership to maintain a studied silence on the proposal that finally sealed their armistice till a formal announcement is made “within the next two days” on the matter.

In the meantime, Venugopal and Randhawa are likely to have further discussions with other Rajasthan Congress leaders to seek their views on a couple of issues. Whether to bring Pilot back as PCC chief – he had lost the post as well as his deputy chief ministership following his July 2020 rebellion. And whether to carry out a mini cabinet revamp to accommodate one or more Deputy CMs (Dotasra, a Jat leader, is among the frontrunners). This would help balance Rajasthan’s caste matrix and would serve the party well ahead of the elections.

Congress keen to replicate ‘Karnataka model’

The Congress high command would rather have its election strategy and planning in Rajasthan mirror the one witnessed recently in Karnataka, where bitter rivals Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar worked unitedly to win a landslide mandate, than one that resembles the chaos wreaked in the Punjab Congress in late 2021-early 2022 when Amarinder Singh was replaced with Charanjit Channi as CM only to be undermined on a daily basis by PCC chief Navjot Sidhu.

Also read: Graft charges: Congress leaders back Gehlot; Sachin Pilot remains firm

The forced cessation of hostilities between Gehlot and Pilot, followed by their posing for news photographers alongside Venugopal and Randhawa outside Kharge’s residence, would suggest that the Congress has, at least for now, weathered another round of this internecine desert storm. With the BJP in Rajasthan a divided house and its tallest state leader, Vasundhara Raje, struggling to convince Narendra Modi to give her a more central role in the state’s poll campaign, the Congress hopes that this belated truce between Gehlot and Pilot, coupled with the goodwill generated for the state government owing to its many populist and historic welfare measures, will help the Grand Old Party duck anti-incumbency and retain power in Rajasthan, come November.

Yet, there is no denying that the questions foremost in the minds of Rajasthan politicians and political observers after Gehlot and Pilot’s show of bonhomie remain – did this truce come too late, and more importantly, will it really last?