Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot flashes the victory sign along with Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala, Ajay Maken and other MLAs at his residence on Monday.
Rajasthan Government crisis Live Updates: The Rajasthan Congress Legislature Party on Monday passed a resolution to extend their support to the Ashok Gehlot-led government, which Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot claimed, has been reduced to a minority. In the legislation, the party also took a dig at BJP saying stripping of democracy by the party is an insult to mandate of 8 crore voters of Rajasthan. As many as 100 MLAs arrived at the chief minister’s residence for the meeting and later shifted to Hotel Fairmont in Jaipur to prevent any poaching attempts.
Earlier in the day, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said the party’s door are open for Pilot, the rebel leader who has claimed that he has the support of over 30 party MLAs in the state’s 200-member assembly. “The Congress government will complete five years in Rajasthan. However hard the BJP tries, it won’t be able to topple the elected government,” he told reporters.
The move to test the political waters of Congress in the state comes just four months after the party let Madhya Pradesh slip from its grasp. Meanwhile, the BJP is watching closely to see if it can find an opportunity put up an alternate arrangement in Jaipur. But the party is not yet ready to take any step, a source said. “We are just watching the situation. The game still does not appear to be set for the BJP,” a senior party leader said.
Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot claimed that the Congress government in the state has been reduced to a minority.
The Ashok Gehlot vs Sachin Pilot tussle in Rajasthan has become some sort of a cliche in Congress infighting. But the latest showdown between the Chief Minister and his Number two is qualitatively different.
Both the timing and the framing are significant. It comes when the pandemic and the lockdown have forced parties to put most political activity on temporary snooze. And, unlike previous times, it doesn’t have an external trigger.
Indeed, it has more to do with the Congress’s internal dynamics. That explains why this time many Congress leaders feel it is time the leadership – read Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi – not kick this can down the road as they have been doing since the party won Jaipur in December 2018. At least two MPs even articulated their concerns in public. Read more here
Watch video | Rajasthan Political Crisis: Ashok Gehlot gets majority, setback for Sachin Pilot
Congress MLAs being taken to Hotel Fairmont in Jaipur.
All is not well in Punjab and Chhattisgarh. Although Punjab CM Amarinder Singh does not face any challenge to his leadership, there is rumbling — and the likes of former PCC chief Partap Singh Bajwa and former Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu keep stirring the pot. In Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Health Minister T S Singh Deo, who was a contender for the post, are said to be no longer on talking terms. Click here to read more.
Many leaders argue that the party’s central leadership has weakened in the last six years. Regional leaders wield considerable influence. The AICC in-charge of Rajasthan, Avinash Pande, is seen as a lightweight, who does not have the stature to make Gehlot and Pilot sit across the table and sort out their differences. Rahul Gandhi’s decision to step back from active organisational activities too, has left the younger leaders pondering their future. The old-versus-young tussle — and their competing ambitions — has split the party in MP, and is now the most visible in Rajasthan. It is also difficult for the Congress to ignore caste equations. Pilot comes from the Gujjar community, and one of the factors that went against his elevation was that it may not have gone down well with the Meena community. Gehlot, on the other hand, belongs to the backward Mali caste, and is not seen as a threat to any caste group — the dominant Jats, Gujjars, Meenas, or Rajputs. Click here to read more.
Pilot was given charge of the Rajasthan Congress in January 2014 after it suffered one of its worst defeats under Gehlot. Pilot, those close to him say, believed his appointment marked a generational shift in the party, and that he would be CM if the party won again. Gehlot has been around for a long time. He became Chief Minister for the first time in 1998, when he was 47. He had been the PCC president, and had spearheaded the Congress campaign that defeated Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s BJP (which had been in power since 1990, barring a year’s President’s Rule), and brought the Congress back to power. Gehlot has since alternated as Chief Minister with Vasundhara Raje of the BJP. The feud between Gehlot and Pilot escalated after the Congress high command gave Gehlot a third shot at chief ministership, with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections that were then round the corner. The two leaders have been at loggerheads since, and each has made comments against the other without taking his name on several occasions. Click here to read more.
To escape the anti-defection law, two-thirds of Congress MLAs will have to leave the party. That is a very big number — 72 out of the Congress’s 107 MLAs. The other option is the ‘Madhya Pradesh model’ — which means MLAs loyal to Pilot resign so that the strength of the House comes down. They would then have to join the BJP, and contest by-elections to fill the vacancies. But since the difference in the combined strength is as large as 50, that many MLAs will have to resign to bring the halfway mark down to a level where each side has 75. This is assuming that the independents and smaller parties will align as before. If there is a switch of sides by some of those who supported the Congress in the Rajya Sabha polls, the breakaway camp will need fewer than 50. Click here to read more.
During the meeting, the Congress condemned the undemocratic activities to weaken the government and demanded stern action against any office-bearer or MLAs found directly or indirectly involved in anti-party activities or conspiracies.
During the meeting today, the Congress Legislative Party passed a resolution which said that "cheer-haran (stripping) of democracy by BJP is an insult to the mandate of eight crore citizens of Rajasthan."
Yes it is, and that is perhaps the key difference with MP. Also, the post of Chief Minister is at the heart of the tussle between Pilot and Gehlot, while Scindia was not asking for chief ministership, which made things easy for the BJP. If Pilot were to join the BJP, the question would be whether he would settle for anything less than chief ministership, given that he is already Deputy CM. Former BJP Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and a large section of the BJP leadership will not accept Pilot as Chief Minister. Click here to read more.
The difference between the combined strength of the Congress and that of the BJP-led opposition is not razor-thin in Rajasthan, unlike in Madhya Pradesh where the Congress government fell when 22 MLAs pulled out. In a House of 230, the Congress strength fell from 114 to 92 (now down to 91 after one more resignation) which is below the BJP strength of 107. The numbers in Rajasthan, on the other hand, were tested just a month ago in the Rajya Sabha elections. The two Congress candidates polled 123 of the 200 votes — its own 107, all 13 independent MLAs, 2 two from Bharatiya Tribal Party and one from RLD. It also banks on the support of the two CPM MLAs in a crunch, which takes the tally to 125. It got 123 votes because a minister and a CPM MLA could not vote on account of their health. Click here to read more.
Top Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, are in touch with Sachin Pilot and are trying to placate him, sources told news agency PTI today. According to sources, top Congress leaders have talked to Pilot and have asked him not to rebel against the chief minister. They also assured him that his grievances would be redressed at the party level. Besides Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, other Congress leaders who are learnt to have spoken with Pilot are Ahmed Patel, former Union finance minister P Chidambaram and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal. It was not immediately known what transpired during the discussions. Sources said the leaders asked Pilot to attend the Congress Legislature Party meeting in Jaipur, but he had not given any assurance.
"When they cannot win the election through democractic means, they bring in the ED, CBI and other agencies. History will never forgive them for this," Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot told reporters outside his residence after the Congress legislative party meeting.
Several buses have arrived outside Gehlot's residence to shift the MLAs to another location to avoid poaching.
After steering the party to victory in his native state of Rajasthan last year, Deputy CM Sachin Pilot joined us in a discussion where he shared his thoughts about the victory and on the next general elections.
Congress leader Randeep Surjewala claimed the Congress government in Rajasthan is stable. "The Congress government will complete five years in Rajasthan. However hard the BJP tries, it won't be able to topple the elected government," Surjewala said.
The Ashok Gehlot vs Sachin Pilot tussle in Rajasthan has become some sort of a cliche in Congress infighting. But the latest showdown between the Chief Minister and his Number two is qualitatively different. Both the timing and the framing are significant. It comes when the pandemic and the lockdown have forced parties to put most political activity on temporary snooze. And, unlike previous times, it doesn’t have an external trigger. Indeed, it has more to do with the Congress’s internal dynamics. That explains why this time many Congress leaders feel it is time the leadership – read Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi – not kick this can down the road as they have been doing since the party won Jaipur in December 2018. At least two MPs even articulated their concerns in public. This is also different from the tumult which the party went through in Madhya Pradesh just four months ago that saw Jyotiraditya Scindia exit and bring the BJP back to power in Bhopal. Click here to read more.
Ashok Gehlot and central Congress leaders flash victory sign; Gehlot camp claims it has the numbers and that over a 100 MLAs have gathered at his residence in Jaipur.
At least 100 MLAs arrived at Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence in Jaipur on Monday.
The Youth Congress also took a swipe at the Centre over the I-T raids. "After horse trading failed, a petty and desperate BJP now launches income tax raids in Jaipur. Shameless," it tweeted.