A seasoned politician, Sachin Pilot is not a pilot by training. His attempt to fly with 19 MLAs was clearly aimed at grounding the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan. But he lost his way and was grounded by the Congress. It’s hard to say where he was headed to or what his intended destination was. But before he could reach his destination, Pilot ran out of fuel and has landed, at least for now, in no-man’s land. While his flight of ambition crash-landed and two of his crew members lost their jobs, the pilot himself was ejected from power, both as deputy chief minister and Rajasthan Congress president. Though Pilot’s flight did succeed in triggering turbulence in Gehlot’s government, his unreasonable demands for his return to the Congress camp have forced him to take the legal course to save himself and his MLAs from being disqualified as members of Rajasthan legislative assembly.
Ambition is not a bad word. There is nothing wrong in being ambitious, but ambition has to be realistic. Pilot was unreasonably ambitious and too demanding. When he took off from Jaipur for Delhi, he claimed to have had the support of 30 MLAs. That was enough to bring down the Gehlot government. Hence, there was reason for the Congress and Chief Minister Gehlot to be worried and the BJP to feel elated. It seemed that a repeat of what had happened in Madhya Pradesh (MP) in March end was about to happen in Rajasthan. But when it became clear that Pilot didn’t have support of more than 20 MLAs, things began to fall in place for the Congress and the imminent threat to the survival of Gehlot government diminished. Pilot’s rebellion thus turned out to be less impressive than expected. It is true that he had enough grievances against Gehlot. But did he have to make a public spectacle of his revolt? Pilot’s rebellion has exposed his unbridled hunger for power and immaturity in handling his adversary.
For quite some time, there were reports and widespread speculation in political circles that Pilot was longing to rebel. He was expected to follow in the footsteps of his former colleague Jyotiraditya Scindia. Unconfirmed reports have it that he was in talks with the BJP for some time. The story begins with the Rajya Sabha election last month when poaching of MLAs was expected to happen for ‘enabling’ the BJP to win an extra seat to the Upper House of parliament from Rajasthan. However, the Congress high command’s intervention is said to have salvaged the situation. Pilot postponed his revolt but the simmering rivalry between the chief minister and his deputy continued. It exploded when Pilot received summons from Rajasthan police’s Special Operation Group to answer questions on the alleged conspiracy to destabilise the state government. Pilot responded on expected lines: he rebelled in an attempt to bring down the government, refused to attend Congress legislature meetings and moved to BJP-ruled Haryana with his loyal MLAs.
Then came the disqualification notices to rebels MLAs from Rajasthan assembly speaker C P Joshi. Sachin Pilot and his flock challenged the speaker’s move to disqualify them in the Rajasthan High Court, which has barred the speaker from taking any action against the rebels MLAs till Tuesday. At the time of writing this article, the court’s verdict on the disqualification notices was awaited. Pilot has said that he was not joining the BJP and the rumours were ‘spread to malign him with the Gandhis’. The Congress has said that its doors are open to the rebels and it is reported that Rahul Gandhi is also ‘keen on keeping the doors open for Sachin Pilot’. This means both sides have kept their options open. Whether Pilot will return to the Congress or join BJP, or else float his own regional outfit remains to be seen. But what’s certain for now is that Pilot tried to punch above his weight. Hence his gamble to copy Scindia’s playbook seems to have failed.
Scindia had a well-negotiated deal with the BJP which he executed without any ideological compunction. He had no issues joining the BJP and could bring down the Kamal Nath government in MP because the gap between the number of MLAs of Congress and BJP was too small. Pilot doesn’t have that luxury: he has the support of only 19 MLAs and the BJP is way behind Congress with 73 MLAs. This could be one of the reasons why Pilot seems disinclined to join the BJP and has not ruled out his return to the Congress. His failed coup against Gehlot has proved the Congress right in its belief that Gehlot would be able to command a larger group of MLAs during the crisis. It is why he was installed as chief minister and Pilot only his deputy.
Like many politicians in the past and Scindia very recently, Pilot has once again demonstrated that loyalty without reward can be fickle. His overwhelming desire to be the chief minister without enjoying support of majority of Congress MLAs does not help differentiate him from other dynasts across political spectrum who feel entitlement to position of power is their birthright. It is true that he worked hard to bring the Congress back in power in Rajasthan after the party’s decimation in the 2013 assembly election. But he is not the only reason why the Congress won Rajasthan in 2018.
Rajasthan is a bipolar state where voters flip between Congress and the BJP every five years. Anti-incumbency sentiment against Vasundhara Raje Scindia’s government was quite strong and Congress had a fair chance to defeat the BJP. Opinion polls had predicted a decisive mandate for Congress. However, BJP fared better than expected and the Congress under Sachin Pilot’s leadership struggled to get 99 of 200 seats. Still he wanted to be the chief minister. For all his good work, the Congress rewarded Pilot by making him deputy chief minister with five key portfolios. This was in stark contrast to Scindia who was sidelined by the Kamal Nath-Digvijay Singh duo and was even denied a Rajya Sabha seat.
After the fall of Congress government in MP, whether Pilot took some inspiration from Scindia is a matter of conjecture, but Pilot knows he lacks numbers to execute a Madhya Pradesh-style revolt. Therefore, joining BJP is not an easy option for him because his MLAs would not want to face the risk of re-election. Besides, with barely 19 MLAs, Pilot is unlikely to get a better deal for himself and his supporters from BJP. In all this, the Congress seems to have done a good job in trying to save the Gehlot government from an expansionist BJP. This is not to absolve the ‘leaderless’ Congress for the mess it is in since its emphatic defeat in 2019 general election. The grand old party is a drifting ship without a captain. It needs a decisive leader to navigate the ship from BJP’s expansionist tide.
The writer is a former Senior Associate Editor of Hindustan Times and Political Editor of Deccan Herald, New Delhi
