Rajasthan turmoil continues as Gehlot, Pilot dig in heels
CM moves MLAs to resort; Cong appeals to Dy CM to return to fold
NEW DELHI/JAIPUR: The political face-off between Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot persisted on Monday — with the CM mobilising legislators to claim he has a majority, the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) seeking “action” against the rebels, and Pilot and his loyalists dismissing the projected numbers while asking for a change in leadership.
Observers sent by the party’s central leadership to Jaipur, while contending that the Rajasthan government was stable, made a public appeal to Pilot, who is also the state unit chief, to return to the fold and attend a second CLP meeting on Tuesday. The invitation was turned down by Pilot late on Monday night.
Monday witnessed dramatic political developments in both Jaipur and Delhi as the situation remained fluid due to three factors — the shifting arithmetic in the assembly; the lack of clarity about steps Congress would take against Pilot and the nature his next move; and uncertainty about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) plan of action.
One key area of contestation on Monday was the arithmetic.
In Jaipur, the Congress general secretary in-charge of the state, Avinash Pande, first claimed that the government had the support of 109 legislators in the assembly of 200 (the majority mark is 101).
But a meeting of the legislative party, held at the CM’s official residence, saw the presence of 102 MLAs, according to multiple
Congress leaders present there. These included 88 Congress MLAs, 10 independents, two Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP) MLAs, and one legislator each of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. The national leadership of BTP, based in Gujarat, later asked its legislators not to take sides in the battle — but the MLAs have said they will stick to the government. The legislators were then taken to a private resort, Fairmont Jaipur.
The Congress has 107 MLAs in the house, out of whom 105 could have attended the meeting in principle (barring the speaker and an ailing minister). This meant that 17 legislators from the party, including Pilot, did not attend the meeting. Three other
independents were reported to have joined the legislators who pledged their support to the government, on the way to the hotel. This, along with an additional CPI(M) legislator’s support, appeared to take Gehlot’s count to 106 on Monday. Pilot’s camp, however, dismissed the numbers.
Pilot loyalist and Ladnun MLA, Mukesh Bhakar, claimed that over 30 legislators were still with them. He said their only demand was to replace Gehlot with Pilot, who was instrumental in the party’s victory in the 2018 assembly elections. “We will not budge from that demand,” Bhakar said. He added that the CM’s garden isn’t the place to prove the majority. A second leader close to Pilot said: “If they have the numbers, then why are
they after Pilot? Why were these legislators not taken to the governor’s house? If they have 109 MLAs, why are only 84 rooms booked in the hotel? And if you have counted them, why are you holding them back? Let them go back to their constituencies. This is false bravado.”
A Congress leader, backing Gehlot, said the option of proving legislative majority in other ways was being considered.
Political experts, however, saw this as a thin majority in a volatile situation. “It is not over, till it is over,” said Jaipur-based political commentator Prakash Bhandari. “Many of the legislators present in the meeting today have the reputation of jumping ship. So one can’t be sure of the numbers at this stage.”