How Kharge handles an upcoming explosive face-off between Gehlot and Pilot will determine Congress’s electoral performance in pivotal state elections in 2023. People like a decisive leadership, not a waffling one. (File)The newly-elected Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge, faces his first acid test in the coming weeks — resolving the Rajasthan gridlock. The discernible tug-of-war between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Deputy CM Sachin Pilot is now threatening to balloon into an awkward public spectacle, with grave unfavourable consequences for the Congress unless Kharge steps in. The dilly-dallying, procrastinating strategy towards finding a solution in the hope that a miraculous epiphany will lead to a happy settlement has not worked for Congress in the past. It works for no one.
The Congress’s remarkable kamikaze mission in Punjab earlier this year will make for an excellent case study in “How To Lose An Election: A Fool-Proof Method for Assured Success”. The party has a spectacular penchant for hara-kiri (Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Puducherry, Goa, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, etc.). But of late, there have been some tailwinds that at least fleetingly promise a resurrection of sorts. How Kharge handles an upcoming explosive face-off between Gehlot and Pilot will determine Congress’s electoral performance in pivotal state elections in 2023. People like a decisive leadership, not a waffling one.
Pilot has correctly thrown the gauntlet at Gehlot for attending an event in Banswara district where he shared the stage with not just Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also BJP CMs from MP and Gujarat. To make matters somewhat muddied, Gehlot seemed to be perceptibly blushing when Modi complimented him. Now, in a normal universe, routine perfunctory civility among senior leaders on a public platform is not a peculiar happenstance. But Gehlot also happens to be the Gujarat-in-charge for the Congress, where elections are due in the first week of December. In terms of optics, Gehlot had scored an embarrassing self-goal. The Gujarat results (Congress has not won since 1995) will have immediate repercussions on the Congress. It could adversely affect the growing positive momentum of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which seems to have exponentially captured the public imagination. A lot is riding on the state and Gehlot seems to have treated the photo-op and bonhomie with the BJP with astounding insouciance. Pilot has raised the red flag, citing examples of Captain Amarinder Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad, two redoubtable veterans, who have since left the party, but were recipients of similar encomiums from Modi. Modi measures his words with care and usually times them right. Those who are dismissing Pilot’s apprehensions as merely the desperate act of an agent provocateur are probably underestimating the gravitas of what he is insinuating.
Can Gehlot be trusted, given his apparent bleak political future in Congress where he is probably almost completely sidelined? This is not the first time since the big boomerang in September 2022 that Gehlot has tried to ridicule his own High Command. In openly courting industrialist Gautam Adani, Gehlot was clearly trying to corner Rahul Gandhi who had allegedly shot down his attempt to contravene the Udaipur Declaration of One Person, One Post. Rahul Gandhi, who has been relentlessly targeting crony capitalism and the plutocratic proclivities of Modi, was taken aback by the red carpet welcome extended to the controversial businessman. It did not help that Gehlot even added the name of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah as a potential investor in the desert state who would get VIP treatment if he chose to indulge the Congress strongman. It is evident that Gehlot is feeling ostracised. His political messaging is explicit. He can do serious damage to Congress if he is shown the door.
On the face of it, Gehlot has self-destructed. He has been thrice chief minister of Rajasthan already — thus, it was baffling that he sacrificed the opportunity of leading the Congress as President merely to hold on to another year (probably his last) as CM. Elections are due in December 2023, and the Gehlot government faces a certain rout, which will probably signal his political obsolescence, if not obituary. Thus, handing over charge to Sachin Pilot would have been a win-win for Gehlot: He would have come across as a more statesman-like character looking beyond his ambitions, and instead taking up the huge responsibility of reinvigorating the grand old party. It helped that he was seen as the Gandhi family’s blue-eyed septuagenarian. Instead, Gehlot plunged Congress into the most unsavoury, unwarranted crisis unbecoming of a man who was being prepared for the top job. He instigated internal insubordination within his local party legislators to demonstrate his muscle power to the very people that were his benefactors. It made no sense.
Kharge needs to act quickly, and it may be a good time to call Gehlot’s bluff. If the Congress President does force a change of guard and makes Pilot the CM giving him a full calendar year to get the party on track, Gehlot will either rebel with his MLAs or quietly acquiesce with the party’s decision. The former option will probably backfire as the BJP probably already sees its stars on the ascendant. Moreover, in a two-party state, the anti-incumbency factor has made Rajasthan a swing state, making it statistically and historically, favouring the Opposition.
The ball is in Kharge’s court. He may well be advised that the man who proposed his name for Congress President was playing an astute game of realpolitik. Now it is up to Kharge to play his.
The writer is a former spokesperson of Congress