In what comes as more headache for the Congress amid the intensifying Rajasthan Political Crisis, the camp belonging to the state's Deputy Chief Minister, Sachin Pilot, on late Monday night released a video of around 15 loyalist MLAs sitting together at a hotel in Haryana's Manesar.
The 10-second video clip presumably sends a direct and strong message to the Congress leadership that Sachin Pilot is not in a mood to relent and that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will have to face some harsh days ahead in order to safeguard his government.
The video comes shortly after the Congress announced a second Legislature Party meeting today and issued a whip for all Rajasthan MLAs to compulsorily attend the meeting or face disciplinary action. Sachin Pilot has also been 'requested' to attend the meeting.
Although Sachin Pilot is not seen in the video, some of the legislators in the clip have their faces turned towards the camera. Congress MLAs such as Inder Raj Gurjar, PR Meena, GR Khatana, and Harish Meena can be seen in the video. The video was tweeted by Tourism Minister Vishvendra Singh with the caption "Family".
— Vishvendra Singh Bharatpur (@vishvendrabtp) July 13, 2020
In the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting held earlier on Monday morning at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence, around 12 Congress MLAs were missing. After the meeting, Congress estimated that Gehlot's government has the support of 106 MLAs.
Following that, the grand old party moved its MLAs to a resort to keep out of the reach of the BJP, claiming that the saffron camp is trying to bribe legislators in order to 'destabilize' the Gehlot-led government in the state.
So far, the Gehlot government had the support of 123 MLAs, including 107 Congress MLAs, 2 MLAs of Bharatiya Tribal Party, one RLD MLA, and 13 Independents, but of these 123 MLAs, he is now left with only 101 MLAs. Out of the 22 rebel MLAs, Sachin Pilot has claimed the support of 19 Congress MLAs and 3 Independents.
In Rajasthan's total 200 assembly seats, 101 MLAs are needed to save the government, but two MLAs of the Indian Tribal Party have also pulled out of the Gehlot government, which currently has the support of merely 99 legislators. But what is more worrying for Ashok Gehlot is that among the remaining 99 MLAs, several are claimed to be of Sachin Pilot's camp.