Gehlot out; stage set for Tharoor vs Digvijay for Cong president race

After an hour-long meeting with interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot declared, on Thursday (September 29), he was taking moral responsibility for “the unfortunate events” that unfolded within the party’s Rajasthan unit these past few days and was bowing out of the Congress presidential election.

He, however, said that he had left it to Sonia to decide whether he should continue as Rajasthan CM or be replaced by another party colleague.

Gehlot met Sonia at the latter’s 10, Janpath residence in Delhi to discuss the ongoing intra-party crisis in Rajasthan caused by MLAs loyal to him in wake of the Congress high command’s move to effect a change of chief minister in Jaipur.

Congress sources told The Federal that during his meeting with Sonia, Gehlot offered to resign as Chief Minister with immediate effect. However, it was decided that observers would be sent again to Jaipur to convene a meeting of the CLP and individually speak with party MLAs on their choice of CM. It was made clear to Gehlot that the CLP would stick to the time-honoured practice of passing a one-line resolution, without any conditions, authorising the Congress president to name the new Chief Minister, to which Gehlot readily agreed.

Meanwhile, AICC general secretary in-charge KC Venugopal said Sonia would take a call on appointing Rajasthan Chief Minister in a day or two.

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On September 25, over 90 of the party’s 108 MLAs in Rajasthan, a majority of them loyal to Gehlot, had threatened to resign from the state Assembly if the party high command replaced Gehlot with his arch-rival, Tonk MLA Sachin Pilot.

Sounded out by Sonia to contest the October 17 Congress presidential election, Gehlot had reportedly been told by the party’s high command that he must step down as CM before the poll. Sonia had sent senior party colleagues Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken to Jaipur last Sunday to convene a CLP meeting where, as per the party’s established procedure, a one-line resolution authorising the party president to nominate the next CM was to be passed.

However, party MLAs loyal to Gehlot had skipped the CLP meeting and gathered at the residence of senior Cabinet minister and Gehlot confidant Shanti Dhariwal.

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At the meeting, Dhariwal and other MLAs made it clear that they would not allow a change of guard in the state.

Later that evening, as many as 82 MLAs had met Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi and tendered their resignation from the Assembly. The resignations, filed in the wrong format, were not accepted but a clear message of open defiance and rebellion against any attempt to appoint Pilot, the former deputy CM who had led an unsuccessful coup against Gehlot two years ago, as the new CM was sent to the Congress high command.

Three of Gehlot’s loyalists – Dhariwal, party’s chief whip in the Rajasthan Assembly Mahesh Joshi and Dharmendra Rathore – have been issued show cause notices by the party for “grave indiscipline”.

On Thursday, after meeting Sonia, Gehlot said, “It has been a tradition in our party that the CLP passes a one-line resolution authorising the Congress president to name the new CM. I as the CLP leader failed to have that resolution passed and I accept my moral responsibility for this failure. It is a lapse for which I will never be able to forgive myself. I have apologised to Sonia Gandhi for these unfortunate events”.

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The crisis in Rajasthan had put a question mark on whether Gehlot will still have the Gandhi family’s blessings to contest the party’s presidential polls; a contest he was reluctant to enter to begin with but had agreed to do so after Sonia and Rahul pointedly told him to file his nomination.

In the backdrop of the Rajasthan crisis and his alleged role in orchestrating the rebellion, Gehlot said he had now informed Sonia that “because I am taking moral responsibility for what happened in Rajasthan, I will not contest the presidential election now”.

Sonia, said sources, agreed instantly.

Earlier in the day, party veteran and former two-term Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh had already collected forms to contest the election and said that he would file his nomination on Friday.

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As reported by The Federal, on September 28, Singh’s entry in the party’s presidential race had made it clear that Gehlot was no longer the Gandhi family’s choice for party president.

The presidential race is now essentially a contest between Singh and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, the latter was the first to collect forms for the poll and is expected to file his nomination on September 30 at 12.30 PM.

A third Congress leader, former Jharkhand minister and trade unionist Krishna Nand Tripathi has also collected nomination papers for the election but none in the party believe he stands a chance in the contest against Singh and Tharoor. With the deadline for filing nominations ending tomorrow (September 30), there is limited time available now for any other candidates to throw their hats in the ring.

Gehlot’s critics in the party believe that the wily Rajasthan CM had deliberately created the crisis in his home state to stay out of the presidential contest as he did not want to relinquish his seat of power in Jaipur.

With a majority of the party’s MLAs in the desert state still fiercely loyal to the Rajasthan CM and equally strident in their opposition to Pilot, Gehlot, say his detractors, perhaps believed that the party high command will not risk antagonising him a year ahead of the scheduled Assembly polls in the state.

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Gehlot loyalists, however, claim that he was willing to step down from chief ministership but had only one condition for doing so – that an MLA loyal to him be appointed his successor instead of Pilot, who Gehlot has repeatedly and publicly accused of conspiring with the BJP to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan.

With Gehlot now out of the presidential race after offering profuse apologies to the interim Congress chief and publicly taking moral responsibility for plunging the party into a crisis, it remains to be seen whether Sonia will allow him to retain power in Jaipur.

A meeting between Sonia and Pilot is likely to take place later today. Pilot, whose chief ministerial ambitions are public knowledge, has reportedly been opposed to any compensatory rehabilitation within the party that will force him to give up his claim for the CM’s chair.

Sonia may have extracted an apology out of Gehlot but to ensure smooth sailing for her party in Rajasthan, she also needs to urgently pacify Pilot who has positioned himself as a leader with mass appeal among the electorally crucial Gujjar community of Rajasthan as well as the more amorphous vote bank of youths.

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If Pilot takes a contumacious position over his ambition to be made CM now instead of waiting for the outcome of the Rajasthan Assembly polls due in November-December 2023, Sonia’s complications would increase. As such, the Gehlot chapter isn’t closed yet and how its final lines are drafted would depend as much on his willingness to step aside from the chief ministership as on Pilot’s acquiescence for a counter-offer by Sonia.

The interim Congress chief may offer a compromise candidate for CM, one acceptable to both Gehlot and Pilot, along with a plum organisational role for the Tonk MLA once the party’s presidential contest concludes on October 19.

Needless to say, for such a formula to work, the arch-rivals of Rajasthan’s Congress politics will need to agree. As such, all eyes are now on Pilot’s meeting with Sonia.