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Journalism of Courage
AMIDST his simmering battle with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot Saturday said his battle against corruption would continue, speaking at a function where he was flanked by his long-time loyalists.
Last month, Pilot had defied a Congress warning to stage a hunger strike demanding action in cases of alleged corruption under the previous Vasundhara Raje government, while hinting that the Congress government under Gehlot had failed to pursue them.
Pilot was in Barmer to inaugurate a hostel named after the late Virendra Choudhary, the son of Rajasthan Cabinet Minister and senior Jat leader Hemaram Choudhary, who was among the 18 MLAs who had sided with Pilot during his 2020 rebellion against Chief Minister Gehlot.
Other MLAs present at the event had also sided with Pilot at the time, including Ramniwas Gawriya, Mukesh Bhakar, Ved Prakash Solanki, Brijendra Singh Ola, Harish Meena, Rakesh Pareek, Murari Lal Meena, G R Khatana, Deependra Singh Shekhawat, P R Meena, Indraj Gurjar and Suresh Modi. Apart from them, some new additions to the Pilot camp were present on the dais, such as Minister of State Rajendra Singh Gudha, MLA and Chairman of Rajasthan SC Commission Khiladi Lal Bairwa, and MLAs Giriraj Singh Malinga, Ruparam and Virendra Singh.
One of the MLAs present was Harish Choudhary, the Congress’s strongman from Barmer and the Punjab in-charge of the party. Last year, Choudhary was at loggerheads with the Gehlot government over an issue related to OBC reservation.
On Saturday, Choudhary talked of “forces” hindering a caste census. “Our children work hard for years, their parents cut their own stomachs for tuition classes. They appear for exams, the paper gets leaked, cancelled. Why does it take so long to take action on it? Why is it so difficult to get justice? Because the people sitting on those chairs, are not those who have gone from here (from amongst common people). Because those sitting on those chairs aren’t those who feel bad, who know the value of Rs 10,000, Rs 50,000,” Pilot said, in a direct reference to instances of government recruitment examination paper leaks under the Gehlot government.
Both Pilot and Hemaram Choudhary were effusive towards each other in their speeches.
Hemaram said he never left the side of a person once he had pledged support to them. “Parasramji Maderna brought me into politics. When it came to the (selection) of the leader in Rajasthan, I stood with Parasramji. Parasramji couldn’t become the leader of Rajasthan, but I never left him,” said Choudhary. In 1998, Maderna, also a Jat leader, was among the frontrunners for the post of CM, but lost out to Gehlot.
This had led to a section of the Jat community permanently becoming detractors of Gehlot. The Congress further lost Jat support when, in 2003, a rising Raje styled herself as a “daughter-in-law of Jats”.
Pilot sought to link the corruption issue he was raising with the underlying factor in the ongoing Karnataka elections. “I feel we will form the government in Karnataka with a good majority. The issue there is also corruption… That is why I say that in Rajasthan too, the time has come to expose the corruption that took place during BJP rule… I have been writing letters for one-and-a-half years and requested strong action on the accusations we had levelled during that (the BJP’s) tenure. Thereafter I sat on a day-long fast in Jaipur on April 11. I am repeatedly saying that take action on this so that people believe that we do what we say,” he said.
