IN ALL-OUT ATTACK, GEHLOT CALLS PILOT A TRAITOR, SAYS HE CAN’T BE CM

JAIPUR: In an unprecedented attack, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot lashed out at rival Sachin Pilot on Thursday, calling him a traitor who cannot be made CM, prompting the latter to say that the remarks were unbecoming of a senior leader and marking yet another fractious battle to roil one of India’s last Congress-ruled states.

Gehlot’s unprecedented remarks, made in an interview to news channel NDTV, came even as Pilot was participating in the Bharat Jodo Yatra and was photographed with Rahul Gandhi.

“A gaddar [traitor] cannot be made the CM. The high command cannot make Pilot the CM… a man who doesn’t have 10 MLAs. Who revolted and betrayed the party,” Gehlot told NDTV, referring to Pilot’s unsuccessful rebellion in 2020.

Gehlot alleged that the 2020 rebellion was sponsored by BJP and said lawmakers in Rajasthan would never accept Pilot as CM, refuting notions that the two leaders had agreed on a pact to share the CM’s tenure after the Congress won a majority in the 2018 assembly elections.

Pilot hit back, saying, “It does not look good for a senior leader like Ashok ji, who has such a vast experience, to make such baseless allegations... The effort on our part should be to work together unitedly so that we can have government in Gujarat,” he told news agency

ANI.