Rajasthan

begins on August 14.

“There is no doubt that a floor test is the only solution and we can go for it any opportune time. We will prove our majority on the floor of the House,” the first Congress leader said, requesting anonymity. “We will get a breather...to address all the issues raised by party leaders and legislators from both sides,” he added, referring to the Gehlot and Pilot camps.

The Rajasthan crisis appeared to have come to an end after a meeting between Pilot and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday. Later that night, the party announced the setting up of a three-member panel to look into issues raised by the 42-year-old Pilot and the 18 rebel legislators, who questioned Gehlot’s style of functioning. Three independents MLAS, too, backed Pilot.

With Pilot’s return, the Congress alone has 107 legislators in the 200-member assembly, where the simple majority is 101. It also appears to have the support of all 13 independents, with the three from the Pilot camp pledging their support to Gehlot, and of five MLAS from different parties. The BJP and its ally Rashtriya Loktrantrik Party have 75 seats.

A second Congress functionary, who is monitoring the developments in Rajasthan, said the government can move the trust vote any time in the assembly. The leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the strategy for the session will be finalised on Thursday.

A third Congress leader said a floor test was important to prove a point. “The entire political crisis was witnessed by the public. A message is needed to be sent that the government is safe and promises made will be fulfilled,” he said. He reiterated the Congress’s allegations that the BJP was trying to destabilise the state government.

The BJP said taking a call on a floor test was Congress’s “internal issue”. “The BJP neither asked and nor will ask for floor test. Let them do whatever they want to do,” BJP legislator Ram Lal Sharma said.

Political analyst Narayan Bareth said the Congress did not want to take any risk. “The party is keeping an eye on the rebels...they [Gehlot loyalists] would also want to convey to the rebels that they are not dependent on them,” Bareth said.

Despite the truce, there are indications of resentment among a section in the Congress.

At a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting in Jaisalmer on Tuesday, a large section was vocal against Pilot, and questioned how the Congress could take the dissidents back after their rebellion threatened the government, a leader present in the meeting said.

On Wednesday, Gehlot said it was natural for legislators backing him to be upset. “The way this episode happened, they had to stay in hotels .... ,” he said, adding that he told the leaders that it was in the interest of the democracy.

The MLAS supporting Gehlot, meanwhile, returned to a hotel on the outskirts of Jaipur. On July 13, they were taken there. And on July 31, they were shifted to a resort in Jaisalmer.

They are expected to stay at Fairmont Hotel near Jaipur till the session begins. The rebel lawmakers — all of them have returned to the state — did not visit the hotel on Wednesday.

One of the most beautiful things in Connaught Place, Delhi’s colonial-era shopping district, cannot be purchased. It’s a tree in E-block: semal, or bombax ceiba.

The towering deciduous tree clashes with the harmonic series of white columns that line the Inner Circle corridor. One ought to see this as nature’s polite intrusion. Although there are many trees in Connaught Place, this particular semal—its trunk draped with dainty vines— offers a most fantastic sight.

Semal is one of the 252 species of trees found in Delhi. Its branches grow in tiers. They radiate from the trunk like the ribs of an umbrella—as described in the website of Delhi government’s forest department. The best place to see the tree in great numbers is in the diplomatic avenue of central Delhi’s Neeti Marg, which is almost totally wooded with semal. Two huge trees on the front lawns of Teen Murti Bhawan are also worth a view. Another grand semal stands tall in Jor Bagh market. But this lone semal in E-block has a most unique perspective: it stands against a backdrop of showrooms; here’s a lone wood making a quiet statement against a cluster of commercial concrete.

With greens vines crawling about the trunk, with insects spreading out on the vine leaves, this is a one-tree wildlife sanctuary. Upwards, the trunk ends voluptuously in a dense foliage of branches. Beyond lies the infinity, the blue sky (these days at least).

This semal is like a homage to the vanished wilderness of Connaught Place, which was a babool forest before the British destroyed it to make a market. Sadly, this tree is barely noticed by pedestrians. In the pre-corona era, when Connaught Place tended to be supercrowded, insensitive shoppers threw empty ice cream cups around the trunk. Beggar children played around it. When idle, tourist guides—for some reason most of them working in Connaught Place are from Kashmir—sat on a nearby bench and stared blankly at the tree.

Semal, as any observant Delhiite will tell you, plays out the poetry of seasons extravagantly. the city you should see