Sachin Pilot gets a birthday gift: 21 MLAs turn up to wish him

While Pilot turns 45 on Wednesday, he will be joining the party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ which begins from Kanyakumari on Wednesday, hence the celebrations were held in Jaipur till Tuesday afternoon, after which Pilot left for Kanyakumari.

The rush of supporters led to a traffic bottleneck in the area, which also houses the CM residence, Raj Bhawan and bungalows of ministers, etc.

Clad in traditional outfits, people from the tribal belt and other regions, including his Assembly constituency Tonk, came with sweets and garlands to greet Pilot. Many of them were seen dancing to the beat of drums.

Banners, hoarding and posters congratulating Pilot were seen throughout the Civil Lines area.

The 21 MLAs who made a beeline to wish Pilot included cabinet minister Hemaram Choudhary and Ministers of State Brijendra Singh Ola and Murari Lal Meena. The three were with Pilot when he had rebelled against the Ashok Gehlot government, in mid-2020, with a total of 19 MLAs, including himself.

Other MLAs included Suresh Modi (Neem ka Thana), Harish Meena (Deoli-Uniara), Rakesh Pareek (Masuda), Prithviraj Meena (Todabhim), Ramniwas Gawriya (Parbatsar), Gajraj Khatana (Bandikui), Mukesh Bhakar (Ladnun), Indraj Gurjar (Viratnagar), Deependra Singh (Srimadhopur), Ved Prakash Solanki (Chaksu), and Amar Singh (Bayana). All of them were with Pilot during the 2020 rebellion; of all the MLAs who had rebelled, 14 turned up to wish Pilot.

Of the remaining four who did not turn up, Gajendra Singh Shaktawat has since passed away. Bhanwarlal Sharma (Sardarshahar) is now seen as part of Gehlot camp, while Vishvendra Singh, who is also the cabinet minister for Tourism, is seen as mostly neutral. However, Ramesh Meena, cabinet minister for Panchayati Raj and Rural Development, did not come as he was busy with a public hearing at his official residence.

Back in 2020, Malinga had claimed that he was offered Rs 35 crore by Pilot to switch to BJP. (Express Photo by Rohit Jain Paras)

Five Gehlot camp MLAs: Indra Meena (Bamanwas), Ganga Devi (Bagru), Virendra Singh (Dantaramgarh) and Prashant Bairwa (Niwai), also turned up to wish Pilot. However, the most surprising name was of Girraj Singh Malinga (Bari).

Back in 2020, Malinga had claimed that he was offered Rs 35 crore by Pilot to switch to BJP. Hours later, Pilot had issued a statement that he was “saddened but not surprised to be at the receiving end of such baseless and vexatious allegations.” A couple of days later, Pilot served a legal notice to Malinga and also sought a written apology.

Recently, Malinga was booked and jailed under the SC/ST Act for brutally assaulting officials of the electricity department and hurling casteist slurs. With Malinga running out of favour with Gehlot, he seems to have turned to Pilot. Sources said that of the new faces which turned up, some wished to curry favour with Pilot ahead of next year’s Assembly elections; in 2018, several Congress candidates had lost following the Gehlot – Pilot power tussle in ticket distribution.”

Also joining the queue were independent MLAs Om Prakash Hudla (Mahwa) and Suresh Tak (Kishangarh). While both may be independent, they are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government, went to former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje’s birthday celebrations in March this year, and have now turned up at Pilot’s birthday celebrations, taking the total number of MLAs to 21.

In the Rajya Sabha polls held in June, Congress’ RS candidates had polled a total of 126 votes; the Rajasthan Assembly has a total of 200 seats.

With PTI inputs