Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday lashed out at both Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia for leaving the Congress.
Sharing two videos on Twitter that featured the two young former Congress leaders, Singh, who is one of the old guards in the Congress and a mentor of sorts to former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, tweeted, “At the national level, people had high confidence in these two emerging leaders. Now listen to what he is saying and what he is doing.”
The video is shot in 2018, as Pilot is heard saying that the BJP has been in power for four years. Pilot and Scindia are sitting together on the show and talking about the work done by the Congress, and it appears that they were campaigning for the party before the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan elections in 2018.
At the time, both Pilot and Scindia had aspired to be chief ministers of their respective states and had felt that their hard work in the party would finally pay off. However, this wasn’t to be, as Kamal Nath was made chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, while Ashok Gehlot was sworn in as Chief Minister of Rajasthan. While Pilot was made deputy Chief Minister, Scindia was not given such a title.
The idea for having the old guard in chief ministerial positions, the Congress felt, was that they would be able to get voters during the 2019 general elections. This turned out to be a damp squib for the Congress, as they lost all 25 seats in Rajasthan and only manage to get one seat out of the 29 seats in the state.
People slowly began noticing dissent within the MP unit of the Congress, when Scindia at the time removed INC from his Twitter bio. While he hasn’t changed the bio as yet, at that time it was a significant change. Then in March this year, on Holi, Scindia switched loyalties, citing that the Congress party had lost its way.
Pilot, meanwhile, showed signs of rebellion. He was critical of the government’s handling of infant mortality at a hospital in Kota two months ago – a move that won him praise on mainstream and social media. Finally, last week he started a coup against the Gehlot government, saying he had the numbers to form a government of his own. While those numbers aren’t enough, as he only has the support of 20 MLAs, his exit from the party is the start of a very interesting period in Indian politics.
