Rajasthan political crisis: How it has dealt a severe blow to Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI: The political crisis in Rajasthan may or may not lead to the toppling of the Ashok Gehlot government but it certainly has weakened the position of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
The fast unfolding saga, triggered by Rajasthan deputy chief minister and state Congress president Sachin Pilot’s rebellion, also highlights the tussle between the old and the new guard in the 134-year-old party and how Rahul Gandhi's grip over the party may be weakening.
Rahul Gandhi entered politics by winning the 2004 Lok Sabha election from Amethi. In September the same year, during the reorganisation of the party, he was appointed as its general secretary.
He was made in charge of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). He did away with nominations to the office-bearers of these two organisations and introduced free and fair elections instead.
Rahul Gandhi is credited with infusing young blood in the Congress.
He became second in command to his mother Sonia Gandhi and was formally appointed as Congress vice-president in 2013.
Rahul Gandhi’s ascendancy in the party saw a corresponding growth in the number and importance being accorded to young leaders such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Jitin Prasada, Ajay Makan, Sandeep Dikshit, RPN Singh, Milind Deora and Rajiv Satav.
In December 2017, in the midst of Gujarat assembly election, he was elevated to the Congress president’s post.
The Congress triumphed in some of the state elections with Rahul Gandhi at the helm.
In Gujarat itself, the ruling BJP’s strength came down from 115 in the 2012 assembly election to below 100 seats in 2017 in the 182-member assembly.
The Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi again managed to wrest power from the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the December 2018 assembly elections. It was considered to be a major victory by the Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.
However, if the 2018 state polls were the highpoint of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, they also became the reason for undoing his efforts in installing Congress governments in these three Hindi-speaking North India states.
Jyotiraditya Scindia was considered close to Rahul Gandhi. No wonder, he would sit next to Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha. He was also the chief whip of the party in the Lower House in the 2014-2019 period.
Earlier, he was a Union minister in the Manmohan Singh government. A few months before the 2018 Madhya Pradesh assembly election, while former chief minister Kamal Nath was made the Congress state president, Scindia was given no less important a post. He was made the state campaign committee chief.
Till the results had been declared, Jyotiraditya Scindia was neck and neck in the race for the chief minister’s post in Madhya Pradesh.
Similarly in Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot has been the state Congress president since 2014. Earlier, he was a Union minister in the UPA-2.
Rahul Gandhi allowed Sachin Pilot to continue as the party’s state president.
Pilot and Scindia worked hard for their party’s victory in their respective states. Like Scindia in Madhya Pradesh, Pilot was a front-runner for the top post in Rajasthan.
However, when the Congress won both the states, the Congress high command opted for the old war horses - Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh and Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan.
Even this was not a smooth and easily-made decision for the party.
It took a while for the top leadership to mollify both Scindia and Pilot.
However, the relations between the old and the new guards never became workable. The gap between the leaders of two generations kept increasing.
In March, Scindia rebelled against the party leadership and quit alongwith 22 MLAs owing allegiance to him. All of them joined the BJP, leading to the downfall of the Kamal Nath government and Shivraj Singh Chouhan taking oath as CM for the fourth time.
Almost the same script is being played out in neighbouring Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot has rebelled and claims support of 25 MLAs of the ruling party. The Congress, however, maintains that it has the support of 109 MLAs in the 200-member state assembly.
As the tussle for power continues in Rajasthan and at a time when the political storm of March has almost settled down, the Congress is clearly the loser.
The developments are also a dampener for the youth brigade in the party as the old guard remains a stumbling block in the growth of the youth brigade.
And, in the whole process, Rahul Gandhi’s efforts of preparing and harnessing youth leadership gets a major jolt.