Jaipur: After an unexpected good performance in Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan a tribute ceremony of veteran Congress leader Rajesh Pilot held hints at shifting of power balance in Rajasthan Congress as all eight newly elected MPs and around 25 of 70 MLAs were present in the ceremony held in Dausa on Tuesday.
It was the death anniversary of Rajesh Pilot who is father of senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot. This program was organized at the memorial built in Jirota village of Dausa district.
Many Congress leaders were present but, what made this ceremony politically significant is the presence of all the eight MPs, one—third of Congress MLAs and many leaders of former CM Ashok Gehlot camp.
The Congress and its allies have won 11 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. Eight of them are of Congress and these include the seats of East and North West Rajasthan, the area where Sachin Pilot has a good influence.
Four out of eight Congress MPs present in the program are known to be close to Sachin Pilot. This includes Murari Lal Meena, Brijendra Ola, Harish Meena and Sanjana Jatav, while the rest of four including Rahul Kasvan, Ummedaram Beniwal, Bhajan Lal Jatav and Kuldeep Indora are being considered as the new entry in the Sachin Pilot camp.
Apart from MPs, 24 MLAs were also present in the ceremony and around half of them are those who were in Gehlot camp earlier. Besides this, senior Congress leader and MLA Harish Choudhary was also present at the event. Choudhary is a strong Jat leader from West Rajasthan and is known to be a political rival of Ashok Gehlot.
The insiders of the party said that Congress has won most of the seats where Sachin Pilot had campaigned. He also managed to mobilize the Gurjar vote bank in favour of the party that had gone away to BJP in assembly elections. The combination of Gurjar-Meena vote bank has helped the party for a clean sweep in Eastern Rajasthan. “ Sachin Pilot looked very active in the election. He made his presence in the candidate selection meetings in Delhi and then campaigned on the seats where he has a good following that helped the party to get the seats, so this gathering of leaders should not be taken as a surprise," said a senior leader on anonymity.
After the program, Sachin Pilot talked to the media and on the question of the return of Congress in East Rajasthan, he said " all have won the election on the party's symbol. The credit for victory in elections goes to the leaders and especially to the party workers. If the workers did not work hard at the booth, we would not have achieved success. We survive only through the hard work of everyone's cooperation and collective leadership. Where we have lost, we will work harder next time."
