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Sachin Pilot’s day-long protest Tuesday targeting the Ashok Gehlot government is only the latest in a long record of friction between the Chief Minister and his former deputy since before the Congress came to power in Rajasthan in 2018.
The friction first became apparent ahead of the Assembly elections that year, over distribution of tickets. After the Congress won, with a lesser margin than it had hoped, there was a long tussle between Pilot, who as then PCC president saw himself as the rightful claimant, and Gehlot, who had more support among the MLAs, for the CM post.
Pilot’s vocal supporters, most of them from eastern Rajasthan, had reached Jaipur and demanded that he be made the CM. As their protests continued and party high command rushed to address the issue, Rahul Gandhi had himself brought the two together. On December 14, 2018, he tweeted the now famous photo of Gehlot and Pilot flanking him with the caption “The united colours of Rajasthan!”
Gehlot was made the CM and Pilot had to contend with the post of Deputy CM. However, no sooner had that been settled, the fight spilled over into how many loyalists of the two leaders would get ministerial berths. Post that, the fight was about portfolio allocation.
Barely had the government formation got out of the way than came the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. While the Congress lost all 25 seats from the state, it was one particular defeat that rankled Gehlot. His son Vaibhav Gehlot – for whom he had fought hard for a ticket – lost from Jodhpur, and the CM suggested his deputy was responsible for Vaibhav’s loss.
The simmering tensions came to a boil in 2020 when Pilot rebelled with 18 other Congress MLAs. Despite being seen as having the BJP backing, and despite being holed out for over a month in a hotel, Pilot had to eventually beat a retreat and return much chastened to the Congress. Gehlot didn’t just hold on to a majority of the MLAs, Pilot ended up losing both the deputy CM and PCC president posts in the process.
The dalliance with the BJP meant that, for the first time, Pilot also had a taint on his squeaky clean profile, and ended up burning bridges with the high command, which was till then seen as having his back.
An emboldened Gehlot didn’t hold back, going so far as to call Pilot “nakara (worthless)” and “nikamma (useless)”.
Still, post the unsuccessful rebellion, Pilot hung on to the hope – which his camp stressed was more than empty hope – of an eventual anointment to the top post. Sources said Pilot was given assurance that this would happen, and that he banked on at least two years as CM, to build his case when the 2023 polls came along.
But the clock kept ticking, and as Pilot supporters pushed a “young face” as CM, Gehlot declared on October 2, 2021: “For 15-20 years, nothing will happen to me. Now if you want to be sad, be sad, it’s not in my hands.”
The war of words went on. In March 2022, Gehlot suggested it was his backing that had done the trick for Pilot becoming a minister in the UPA II government at the Centre. Pilot responded that the high command had not been too keen to give Vaibhav Gehlot a ticket for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls but that he had backed it.
The last straw for Pilot perhaps came in September 2022, when it was clear that the high command would not rock the boat to accommodate him. Gehlot’s name was suggested as the national Congress president, and the natural corollary – it was assumed – was that Pilot would replace him in Rajasthan. However, in an unexpected show of defiance, Gehlot’s supporters rebelled against the high command’s “unilateral” decision to have a new CM.
Scores of Congress MLAs skipped a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) summoned by the high command, and 81 of them, including Independents, even submitted their resignations to Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi.
Gehlot again came out on top, despite a public show of remorse over his supporters’ actions. And, but for that rap on the knuckles, Gehlot stayed on as CM, while his men who got show cause notices saw no further action.
The high command last made a bid for peace when, ahead of the Rajasthan leg of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, it sent Rahul aide K C Venugopal to ensure all went smoothly. This time, in November end, state president Govind Singh Dotasra tweeted a photo of the two, himself and Venugopal, with the caption, “The United Colours of Rajasthan”.
But once the dust of the Yatra was settled, it became increasingly clear that Pilot should not expect any help from Delhi to fulfill his ambitions. With elections eight months away, the last window for him to act was closing, and he seems to have taken the plunge.
