Why Ashok Gehlot owes his CM chair to three first-time Congress MLAs?

Gehlot said the three legislators had timely informed him about the “huge betrayal that was going to happen”, referring to the unprecedented political crisis that his government faced in July 2020 when then Deputy CM and state Congress chief Sachin Pilot and 18 of his loyalist party MLAs rebelled against him and camped in Manesar in the BJP-ruled Haryana and Delhi for over a month.

“Had these three MLAs not supported me on time, I would not have been standing in front of you as the CM,” Gehlot said.

In his speech at Dholpur, Gehlot also claimed that senior BJP leader and ex-CM Vasundhara Raje had then helped save his government by opposing the BJP’s attempts to allegedly bribe the rebel MLAs. Raje later dismissed the CM’s statement as a “lie” and a “conspiracy” against her.

Interestingly, prior to the political crisis, Abrar, the 39-year-old MLA from Sawai Madhopur, Bohra, the 56-year-old Rajakhera MLA, and Dudi, the 43-year-old Deedwana MLA, were considered to be among the party leaders close to Pilot. All of them belong to Rajasthan’s known political families which have been affiliated to the Congress for decades.

While Danish Abrar’s father Abrar Ahmed had been a Union minister, his mother Yasmin Abrar had been a party MLA and also the former acting chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW).

Bohra’s father Pradhyuman Singh was a Congress MLA till 2018, who won the Rajakhera seat in Dholpur district eight times till then before vacating his seat for his son.

Similarly, Chetan Dudi’s late father Rupa Ram Dudi was a two-time MLA from Deedwana in Nagaur district.

Before the 2018 Assembly elections, when Pilot was the state Congress president, he batted for the allotment of party tickets to a sizeable number of younger candidates.

The state Congress politics underwent a dramatic change in July 2020 in the wake of Pilot’s rebellion, which led to the Gehlot government being gripped by political uncertainty.

On July 11-12, 2020, speculations were rife that several Pilot camp MLAs had gone to Delhi. The trio of Abrar, Bohra and Dudi were also named among them.

While the Congress did not publicly name its MLAs who had sided with Pilot, CM Gehlot accused the BJP of making a bid to topple his government. At the time Congress sources also said that some of the Pilot camp MLAs returned to the state from Delhi after their family members, the party and the CM managed to convince them to do so.

On the night of July 12, 2020, a press conference was held at the residence of CM Gehlot, which was addressed by Abrar, Bohra and Dudi. The three first-time MLAs holding a news conference amid a raging political drama was a signal that they would play a key role in it.

The trio then told reporters that they had gone to Delhi for “personal reasons”. They said they were the Congress’s “soldiers” and will “stay with the party till their last breath”. They also blamed the media for spreading “rumours” that they had switched to the Gehlot camp after rebelling with the Pilot camp, calling it a “media trial”.

On that day, while Pilot remained incommunicado, a statement was issued purportedly on his behalf by his PR manager Lokendra Singh, which stated, “Rajasthan Deputy CM & Congress leader Sachin Pilot not to attend Congress Legislative Party meeting scheduled to be held tomorrow”. The statement claimed that the Gehlot-led government was reduced to a “minority” after over 30 Congress and some independent legislators pledged support to Pilot.

At the Gehlot-convened CLP meeting on July 13, 2020, the identity of Pilot’s 18 loyalist MLAs became clear as they did not show up. Abrar, Bohra and Dudi attended the CLP meeting and pledged their support to Gehlot.

Subsequently, in what was dubbed a “token of gratitude” from Gehlot, Bohra’s father Pradhyuman was appointed the Rajasthan Finance Corporation chairman, a post that the octogenarian holds till date.

Gehlot undertook an expansion of his ministry in November 2021, but the trio were not inducted in it for being first-term MLAs. Gehlot also had to accommodate some leaders from the Pilot camp as ministers as by this time, the Congress high command had brokered a shaky truce between the two top leaders.

However, just after his cabinet rejig, Gehlot rewarded Abrar by making him his advisor.

While the three MLAs have never acknowledged that they were initially part of Pilot’s rebellion, the CM’s Sunday remarks are revealing about the key role that they played in defusing the 2020 crisis.

The three MLAs were not available for their comments.