Rajasthan Cong generational battle rages on: Independents give Gehlot edge as Pilot camp pushes for younger candidates

Recently, Deependra Singh Shekhawat, a septuagenarian Congress MLA from Srimadhopur and former Assembly Speaker, announced he would not contest the coming elections. Shekhawat is one of the 18 MLAs who sided with Pilot during his rebellion against Gehlot in 2020.

Sangod MLA Bharat Singh and Gudamalani MLA Hemaram Choudhary have also been speaking on similar lines. While Singh made it clear a few years ago that he would no longer contest Assembly polls, Choudhary has repeatedly said he had decided to retire before the 2018 Assembly elections but contested on Pilot’s insistence. In recent times, Choudhary has emphasised the need to give the youth a chance, saying that the older generation should pave the way for youngsters.

“Nobody has given me the advice not to contest elections. It is me who is saying that I won’t so that the youth can come forward. To the Chief Minister, I say, promote your son, make him an MLA but let youngsters come forward. New people should come forward. If Gehlot comes forward in a press conference and says, ‘I want to see a Congress government in Rajasthan and I am not a claimant for the CM’s post as I will promote the youngsters’, the map will change tomorrow,” Singh told reporters earlier this month.

While Singh was not among the 18 Congress MLAs who sided with Pilot in 2020, he is known to have drifted towards the former Deputy CM’s camp in recent months.

The statements of senior leaders such as Singh, Choudhary, and Shekhawat are indirect attacks on Gehlot and his loyalists, some of whom are approaching their eighties. Kota North MLA and Cabinet minister Shanti Dhariwal, 79, is Gehlot’s right-hand man and holds important portfolios such as Urban Development and Housing along with Parliamentary Affairs. He organised a parallel meeting of MLAs last year at his residence on the same day the Congress high command convened a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting. MLAs loyal to Gehlot skipped that meeting.

Education minister B D Kalla is another MLA in his seventies who looks committed to contesting the next elections even though the threat to his candidature seems to be coming not from the Pilot camp but from Gehlot’s OSD (Officer on Special Duty) Lokesh Sharma who has his eyes set on contesting from Kalla’s seat in Bikaner district.

Sources in the Gehlot camp said leaders such as Dhariwal had no plans to withdraw from the Assembly elections despite the pressure mounted by Pilot loyalists.

One factor that works in favour of the Gehlot faction is the outcome of the 2018 Assembly elections when Pilot was the state party president and the Congress denied tickets to several ageing loyalists of the CM and instead fielded youngsters.

But the results did not turn out as the Pilot camp expected. The public mandate worked in favour of the old guard. The older leaders contested the elections as Independents and most of them won, defeating official Congress candidates.

At 13, Rajasthan’s Independent MLAs outnumber non-Congress and non-BJP parties and at least 10 of them are Gehlot’s supporters. In the CM’s tussles with Pilot in the past, these MLAs have often given him the edge. They played a crucial role in getting Gehlot chosen as the CM in 2018 after the Congress fell one short of the majority mark of 100. The pro-Gehlot Independent MLAs promised to support a Congress government only if the 71-year-old was made the CM. Later, some of them were appointed advisors to the CM.

The fact that the Congress is aware of the clout of some of these older leaders and is unwilling to take any stand on the age factor before the elections was made clear by party in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa earlier this month. Asked if age would be a factor when deciding candidates. Randhawa told reporters, “Whoever has a greater chance of winning will get the ticket. Will you drive the elders of your family away from home just because they are now old?”