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Journalism of Courage
Close on the heels of the outcome of the Gujarat Assembly elections on Thursday, in which the Congress party ended up with its worst-ever performance, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Gujarat, Raghu Sharma, 64, submitted his resignation to AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, taking “moral responsibility” for the party’s “unprecedented loss”.
In October 2021, the AICC leadership entrusted Sharma, the then Rajasthan health minister, with the responsibility of Gujarat, following which, in November 2021, he resigned from his ministerial position in line with the Congress’s principle of “one person, one post”.
Sharma’s appointment as the AICC in-charge of the poll-bound Gujarat was made mainly for his close relations with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who had been the AICC general secretary in charge of Gujarat earlier. The Congress leadership also appointed Gehlot as the observer for the Gujarat polls this time.
Evidently, the Congress high command’s rationale behind giving Sharma the charge of Gujarat was that he and Gehlot would work in tandem to boost the party’s prospects in the Gujarat elections.
Sharma had started his career with student politics. He was elected as the president of the University Maharaja College Students’ Union and subsequently the Rajasthan University Students’ Union. He was also associated with the Indian Youth Congress, going on to become the Rajasthan Congress vice-president.
Sharma was first elected as an MLA from Kekri in Ajmer in 2008. With Gehlot as the CM, he then acted as the chief whip for the party. He lost the 2013 election from Kekri. However, he managed to win the Ajmer Lok Sabha by-election in 2018, when he was close to the then state party president Sachin Pilot, who was instrumental in getting him the bypoll ticket.
Later in the 2018 election, Sharma was again elected as an MLA from Kekri, following which he resigned as the Lok Sabha MP. He was appointed by CM Gehlot as the health minister.
During the Covid outbreak, Sharma earned laurels for the state’s handling of the pandemic, especially with the “Bhilwara model”, among many other measures then taken by the Gehlot government.
The Rajasthan government earned praise for being “organised and transparent” in its approach to the Covid and for its “relentless work” in dealing with the pandemic, with Gehlot leading the state’s response and Sharma implementing it as the health minister.
Then, during the 2020 political crisis sparked by Pilot’s rebellion, Sharma stayed back with the Gehlot camp, much to the surprise of some in the Pilot faction.
In Sharma’s appointment as the AICC in-charge of Gujarat affairs, the party leadership apparently expected that Gehlot and Sharma would “replicate” their remarkable coordination and performance that they displayed while grappling with the Covid earlier. This however did not fructify as Gehlot barely put any efforts into managing the Gujarat polls despite being given its charge by the AICC leadership, as he had been too preoccupied locking horns with his arch party rival Pilot. There had also been the buzz that Gehlot’s relations with Sharma had soured. Consequently, the Congress was completely decimated in the Gujarat polls, bagging just 17 seats of the state’s total 182 seats with its vote share plummeting to about 27 per cent from 40 per cent. In the 2017 polls, when Gehlot had worked hard as the AICC in-charge of Gujarat, the grand old party had given a tough challenge to the BJP, winning 77 seats against the ruling party’s 99.
