Jaipur: The ongoing tussle between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot is intensifying. Pilot, who also doubles as the PCC president, has been camping in Delhi for the past five days even when the Assembly session in the state capital is on. It is learnt that Pilot is keen to give up his responsibility as the PCC president and concentrate on his job as the deputy chief minister.
Pilot had met Ahmed Patel and other senior party leaders including Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to push his case for the chief minister’s post. Pilot is unhappy with Gehlot as he did not consult him over a few political appointments and he is totally ignored in the decision-making process. Pilot is sore that he was not consulted over political appointments in the Tonk constituency from where he was elected to the Vidhan Sabha.
Pilot is also annoyed with the attitude of the CM and during his meeting with the senior leaders in Delhi, he complained about it. Pilot as the deputy chief minister has the Panchayati Raj and the Public Works departments under him, but now he wants a bigger role and is seeking a major portfolio like Home or Finance for himself.
Both Gehlot and Pilot refuse to accept responsibility for the party’s second successive defeat in the Lok Sabha election. In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election, the party lost all the 25 seats and the Chief Minister Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot lost from Jodhpur.
The Gehlot lobby is crediting him for the party’s victory in the December 2018 election and has been claiming that it was Gehlot who won the battle for the Congress.
The same lobby is accusing Pilot of leading the party to the doom for the second time in a row. In 2014, he was the Pradesh Congress president when the party lost all the 25 seats and under his leadership, the party finished with a nought in the Lok Sabha election. They made him responsible for the double whammy.
By Prakash Bhandari