Raj political pitch rises amid courtroom battle
JAIPUR: Allegations and counterallegations flew thick and fast, personal attacks became sharper, and the suspense over a courtroom drama continued on Monday in the power play between chief minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, which is the midst of a political crisis in the wake of fissures in the state Congress leadership.
Gehlot called Pilot “good for nothing” in a sharp personal attack, accusing him of trying to topple the government and alleging that he did nothing substantial as the Rajasthan Congress president in a seven-year tenure — remarks that once again indicated the differences between the two top Congress leaders in the state may be hard to bridge. The Pilot camp demanded Gehlot’s resignation and asked him to apologise.
In the courtroom, the Rajasthan high court’s hearing of a plea by Pilot and 18 Congress legislators backing him — all of them have been served disqualification notices for their rebellion — remained inconclusive. The hearing will resume on Tuesday, and an order is expected later in the day. The court, in its previous hearing last Friday, directed that no action can be taken against Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs until 5.30pm on Tuesday.
As the political temperature soared, Congress legislator Giriraj Singh Malinga accused the former deputy CM of offering him crores of rupees to make him join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — a charge Pilot said was “baseless” and aimed to “malign” him.
Then, on the investigation front, the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police, who are probing an alleged attempt to topple the Congress government, served a notice on Union water resources minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. The Congress says his voice could be heard in audio tapes purportedly containing conversations detailing the plot to dislodge the government.
Shekhawat, in his reply, questioned the legality of the audio tapes in line with the stand of the BJP, which has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into what it calls a “saga of illegalities and concocted lies” by the Congress.