Former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot received a boost on Sunday as he found a place in the reconstituted Congress Working Committee (CWC), which is the party’s top decision-making body, months before the Assembly elections in the state. Pilot’s inclusion is a signal from the party leadership that despite not backing his chief ministerial ambitions, over which he has been involved in a feud with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, it still values him and the role he can play in Rajasthan politics. With the polls approaching, Pilot and Gehlot seem to have buried their hatchet, at least for now, and sources in the Congress said the Gehlot faction was unlikely to make any public comments on his elevation to the national body. Pilot’s inclusion in the CWC for the first time comes after the 45-year-old leader failed to get the high command to replace Gehlot as the party's leader in Rajasthan or be chosen as the party’s face for the Assembly elections. Before the truce between the two was brokered by the high command, the Rajasthan CM had also not minced words, calling his former deputy a "traitor" as well as "nakara aur nikamma (useless and worthless)". Pilot too attacked Gehlot by alleging that the CM sees BJP's Vasundhara Raje as his leader and not Sonia Gandhi. Pilot even organised a yatra against the Gehlot government, forcing the Congress high command to go into damage control mode. At a meeting in New Delhi on May 29, the two leaders met senior Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge. The Congress had announced after the meeting that the two leaders have agreed to fight the Rajasthan Assembly elections unitedly. For Congress, winning Rajasthan is crucial before the Lok Sabha elections next year. Ever since then, the two leaders and their supporters have refrained from attacking each other. In the last month, Pilot and Gehlot have attended meetings with other Congress leaders and state party in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa to discuss its poll strategy. The party faces an uphill task in a state that has consistently voted out incumbent governments every five years for the last 25 years. Pilot’s advantage Back in 2020, Pilot lost his twin posts of state Congress president and Deputy CM after his rebellion against Gehlot, which triggered a month-long political crisis in Rajasthan. Last year, Gehlot supporters skipped an official Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting and tendered their resignations to foil the high command’s efforts to instal Pilot as the CM. That Pilot has not been given any other responsibility in the form of a post at the party's central level or as the in-charge of any state works to his advantage as Pilot has made it clear that he has no intention of moving away from Rajasthan politics. “I express my gratitude to respected Congress President Mr Mallikarjun Kharge, CPP Chairperson Mrs Sonia Gandhi and former President Mr Rahul Gandhi, for making me a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC). We all will strengthen the customs and ideology of the Congress and take it more strongly to the people,” Pilot tweeted on Sunday after the CWC appointments were announced. Before Pilot’s inclusion in the CWC, there was not much to celebrate for his supporters, with Gehlot calling all the shots in Rajasthan and his government’s welfare schemes being projected by the party to retain power in the state. After the announcement of the new CWC, Pilot loyalist MLAs such as Congress legislator from Ladnun Mukesh Bhakar congratulated him.
