GEHLOT IS STRONGER AFTER PILOT REBELLION PETERS OUT

In the end, the rebel finds himself stranded midway. And the arch rival he had set out to vanquish has emerged stronger. After a month-long cat-and-mouse game, in which the Congress MLAs loyal to Sachin Pilot took shelter in a Haryana resort for fear of kidnapping by Rajasthan Police, it is game, set and match to Ashok Gehlot. The Rajasthan Chief Minster has consolidated his grip over the Congress MLAs while Pilot, whom he promptly sacked as deputy chief minister and slapped with charges of sedition, stands vastly diminished. Aside from forfeiting his position as deputy chief minister, Pilot has also squandered a lot of political capital. In the past two decades, as a young and pragmatic politician, he had projected himself as a new-age leader free of the dubious baggage associated with a majority of party colleagues. He had aroused hope as a promising politician who would avoid low machinations and ugly money and muscle power for grabbing power. Cutting across party lines, he was the favourite of the chattering classes. But a month after rising against the low-grade thuggery and intimidation of the Rajasthan chief minister, his erstwhile deputy has let himself down badly, meekly surrendering to his tormentor for fear of defeat in the headcount in the assembly a few days hence. Failure to dislodge his bête noire, Pilot feared, would result in his isolation, a political dead-end, specially when the Rajasthan BJP, under former chief minister Vasundhara Raje refused to throw a lifeline. Yet, had Pilot taken his campaign against Gehlot to its logical conclusion, even if he had failed to oust the government, he would have become the magnet for disgruntled elements in the Congress and outside. His failure to muster the numbers in the assembly would have still kept the Gehlot government on tenterhooks, opening the CM to blackmail from MLAs lest they made common cause with the rebel leader. Now, Gehlot will ride roughshod over party legislators following the decimation of the chief challenger into a meek mouse. For a long time to come, Pilot will be at the mercy of Gehlot. The so-called compromise reached between the rebel leader and the Gandhis, brother and sister, not the ailing mother, makes no mention of replacing Gehlot anytime in the near future. It does not, in fact, speak about Pilot’s rehabilitation either in the party or government. Whether Gehlot will show magnanimity and restore the No. 2 position to the weak-willed rebel who had dared to hurt but lacked the courage to strike, remains to be seen.

Whether or not Pilot felt let down by the BJP, he was impulsive in mounting a rebellion without lining up adequate troops behind him. But it is clear that Raje had a hand in ensuring Pilot’s humiliation. Had she proactively backed his rebellion, committing to support from outside an alternative Pilot-led government, Gehlot would have found it hard to survive the floor test in the assembly. But now he faces no resistance from within the Congress Party and the scheduled assembly session has lost its significance in the midst of the pandemic. Yet, his government may not be as strong as he would like to believe. Cracks have surfaced in the edifice created with the support of diverse elements from outside,18 months after the Congress fell short of the half-way mark by a couple of seats in the assembly poll. Even if Pilot decides to sulk in a corner, the rebel MLAs will need to be accommodated by Gehlot, lest they cause trouble again. Assembly Speaker C P Joshi, once himself an aspirant for chief ministership, did not enhance the image of his constitutional office by taking sides in the Gehlot-Pilot power tussle. Dragging the courts in the internal power struggle within the Congress Legislature Party too was not a healthy development. In his desperation to save his kursi, Gehlot misused the police, resorted to foul invective against Pilot, hurled baseless charges against Central ministers and generally behaved in a crude manner. The failed coup also exposed to the public the allegations of money-grubbing by the Gehlot family, including his son and brother. Nobody comes out smelling like roses from the month-long power struggle, not even the Gandhis, who inexplicably failed to use their `persuasive powers’ when Pilot first sought their intervention against Gehlot’s high-handedness. It may be that Pilot was ready to be persuaded at this stage, when it dawned on him that he lacked the numbers to unseat Gehlot. The Gandhis’ intervention merely helped paper over Pilot’s own failure.