As things stand, Sachin Pilot seems incapable of making a bid for the chief ministership by breaking the party and netting the support of the BJP, an option he probably entertained when he chose to rebel. At a narrow political level, did Pilot make a bad miscalculation? It certainly seems so, unless one buys the theory that he acted entirely emotionally, as an impulsive reaction of the humiliation heaped on him.

Despite publicly signalling that its doors are open for rapprochement, the Congress has gone on the offensive, by stripping him from his deputy chief ministership and leadership of the State unit of the party. In tandem, the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker, at the probable urging of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, has initiated disqualification proceedings against Pilot and his support group of 18 MLAs, which the latter have tried to block in court. With the Gehlot camp leaking alleged conversations between a couple of members in the Pilot camp and a BJP minister, charges of MLA-purchasing and counter-charges of fabricated audio tapes, the question is whether things may well have reached a point of no return.

A rapprochement at this stage is possible only if Pilot is given a face-saving compromise after he is forced to make an apologetic climbdown. In the absence of this, the most likely possibilities are the formation of a Pilot-headed regional outfit or the continuance of his camp within the Congress for a while in the event the Court looks unfavourably on disqualification. As things stand, the BJP, which stands now accused of fanning the flames of division within the Congress, using banknotes as fodder, would prefer if Pilot strikes out on his own.

Effectively, the entire episode has been characterised by a marked lack of principle and ideology, being washed over with cynical political expediency. Nobody has emerged better as a result of it – not the seemingly blundering Pilot, not the high-handed Ashok Gehlot and not the manipulative BJP. As for the Congress leadership, the less said about it the better. To congratulate it for taking a tough no-nonsense stand against the rebels may have had a modicum of credibility if it wasn’t for recent history. This is a party that has witnessed the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia, altering the face of the Madhya Pradesh government, Himanta Biswa Sarma, changing the party’s fortunes in Assam, and others such as Vijay Bahuguna in Uttarakhand, Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh and many more in other States. Attempting to send out a firm uncompromising signal after having been bled by a hundred cuts is of no benefit to the party. If it wants to survive, it needs to re-examine why people are deserting it in such large numbers rather than signalling on how it will respond in the event they continue to do so.