Echoes of Gehlot-Pilot feud in Rajasthan Youth Congress row

Both Raghu Sharma, who at present is in charge of the Congress’s affairs in Gujarat, and Food and Civil Supplies Minister Khachariyawas are close to Gehlot. Khachariyawas was earlier in the Pilot camp but switched sides during the political crisis in 2020 when the then deputy CM tried to supplant Gehlot and raised the banner of rebellion. At present, he is among the CM’s g supporters.

The appointments did not go down well with Rajasthan Youth Board chairperson Sitaram Lamba who is a former general secretary of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). Questioning the appointments, Lamba tweeted the following day, “Is there any internal democracy left in the Youth Congress? Those who are not even members of the IYC, they have been made senior vice president without organisational elections.” He subsequently wrote a letter to IYC national president Srinivas BV on the issue.

Lamba spoke to The Indian Express from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, where he was overseeing arrangements for the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra that began on Wednesday. “Appointments in the Youth Congress have a certain process and if that is ignored and bypassed, it is not good for the workers,” he said. “Appointments are either made through elections or after sustained work within the organisation, a person being a public representative or contribution of any youth in social work. The proper process hasn’t been followed in the recent promotions and appointments.”

Lamba’s objections drew an angry response from Dushyant Raj Singh who said, “I have been a member of the Youth Congress for the last five years and for nearly two years I have been a general secretary and in charge of Alwar district. I have worked hard for the Rajasthan Youth Congress and have been involved in demonstrations and dharnas on streets. Now, I have been promoted for all the work that I have done. This is an attempt to get cheap publicity by people who have no relation with struggle or movements and are now questioning the appointments.”

Singh also reminded Lamba that he was the Youth Board chairperson because of his background in the Youth Congress.

Pilot’s rebellion and repercussions

This is not the first time that the Congress youth wing has been engulfed by factionalism. In July 2020, following Pilot’s rebellion, the party removed his loyalist Mukesh Bhakar, an MLA, as RYC president three months after his appointment. Pilot too lost the deputy CM and had to step down as state Congress president.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot with former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot in Jaipur. (PTI, file)

MLA Ganesh Ghogra succeeded Bhakar, who continued to publicly remind people that he was an elected president and sacked at the start of his tenure and no election was organised to choose his successor.

While appointments have been made in the RYC from time to time since Bhakar was removed, elections have not been held. Ghogra, who still heads the state young wing of the party, remains a Gehlot loyalist but took on the government in May when he resigned as Dungarpur MLA a day after being named in an FIR for allegedly locking up a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) and other government officials.

In his resignation letter, Ghogra alleged that despite being an elected representative of the ruling party and RYC chief, he was being neglected and his voice was being suppressed by local administration officials. But the party leadership did not accept his resignation and he continues to remain at the helm of the RYC. Even as the recent appointments triggered controversy, Ghogra took to Twitter to congratulate the new appointees.