Sachin Pilot goes back to janata, Ashok Gehlot stands his ground: Political drama going the way of a Greek tragedy

“We can’t lose any more time in reaching out to people,” Pilot told me, “given BJP’s aggressive campaigning which has to be countered.”

In the small town of Parbatsar, in Nagaur district, there were at least 30,000 people present at the rally he addressed, according to the police present, with young people responding enthusiastically to Pilot’s punchlines. The BJP, he said, talks about Hindu-Muslim, India-Pakistan, Mandir-Masjid, but “mujh se zyada Ramram sa kaun bolta hai?” “Ramram sa” is a greeting in Rajasthan.

Focussing on “jawan and kisan (youth and farmers)” and ticking off all the right boxes — Pilot took the Modi government to task for the neglect of farmers. He urged young people to rebuild the Congress after Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra and did not spare his own government, asking it to go for the big daddies, not the small fry, behind the paper leak scam.

Over the years, you learn to distinguish between a “dead” meeting and a “live” one, and this was certainly a live gathering. As Pilot left the meeting, young men rushed to surround his vehicle; others scrambled over the wall to catch a glimpse of him, a lone youth managing to get atop the pillar of the gate shouting “I love you” as the car drove past. A group of girls, Class 12 students, had come from school “to hear Sachin Pilot” and they will become voters ”in a year’s time”.

With elections only 10 months away, Pilot is going back to the “janata” — and obviously testing the waters about his popularity — before deciding his future course of action. Unless he is seen to be fighting, he will lose the support he enjoys. Demonstrating a fervour in his favour is also meant to put pressure on the high command to install him on the Jaipur gaddi— as they had promised to do.

It is interesting that he should draw crowds even though he neither wields state power nor holds a party position, being only a Congress MLA — and a persona non grata with the CM, who must be keeping a tight vigil on those who make a move towards him. Many believe the crowds for him will increase as the weeks go by. If nothing else, it will enable him to ensure tickets for his supporters in the year-end Assembly elections.

Two things stood out from what people said about Pilot — and Gehlot — and this is integrally linked to the Congress’s fortunes in Rajasthan 2023. This was a sentiment voiced in different places — in Nagaur, Jaipur, and in the towns dotting the Delhi-Jaipur highway. A kiosk owner not far from Pilot’s Civil Lines residence in Jaipur summed up the situation pithily: “Look, I am from the Sindhi samaj and we vote for the BJP. But I can tell you this, if Pilot is made CM, he will bring the Congress into a fight. Otherwise, there is not even one paisa chance of the Congress winning.”

Many added a caveat to this. “If Gehlot and Pilot show a united face, the party might even make it.” Otherwise, it is BJP all the way, even though it, too, is riven by dissensions.

But the patch-up many hope for is a chimera — as things stand today.

People are appreciative of the welfare measures announced by Ashok Gehlot — and Jaipur is plastered with his smiling face announcing the universally applicable Chiranjeevi medical insurance scheme for Rs 5 lakh, urban MNREGA for 100 days employment, old-age pensions, power subsidies for 1.2 million farmers, and the announcement earlier this week about enforcing the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for government servants, which won the Congress the state of Himachal Pradesh.

Yet, there is a huge anti-incumbency against many MLAs. To keep them by his side, the CM had allowed each of them to become the “CM of his constituency”. Gehlot calculates that by taking a leaf out of the BJP’s book he can beat back anti-incumbency by changing a large number of MLAs in the elections and with his welfare schemes.

Gehlot told me, “Mere liye High Command ka faisla manya rakhta hai, and I’ll follow it.” He added, “There’s no question of resigning. I am working away.“

But — and this is a “but” people are quick to point to, and do so somewhat cynically — to win elections there has also to be “a current”, a sentiment that people identify with, which is missing today.

The Gandhi family is believed to have tasked Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge to persuade Gehlot to make way for Pilot. But the high command has not managed to get its way. The fact is that unless Gehlot decides to quit on his own, the high command is in no position to get its edict enforced.

It fears that even if 80% of the MLAs go by what the central leadership says and plump for Pilot, could the remaining 20% rock the boat and bring down the government? Gehlot has managed to create that impression, with the revolt of the MLAs last year when they did not show up for the meeting with the central observers.

What happened in Punjab is too recent a memory to forget. While Gehlot maintains that he will “do what the high command says”, he has no intention to step down and continues to repeat his “gaddar” charge against Pilot for hobnobbing with the BJP in 2020.

The best case scenario for the Congress would have been to install Pilot in Jaipur — he is seen by many as the future of the Congress in Rajasthan — and bring Gehlot to Delhi as the president of the Indian National Congress, with his huge experience and understanding of the Congress system. But Gehlot decided against it. And if he was not willing to give up the remaining one year of his CMship in exchange for the presidentship of India’s grand old party, he is even less likely to do so now.

What has been missing in Rajasthan is a clear steer by the party’s high command. It has neither managed to effect a rapprochement between the two warring leaders nor has it given a clear command about what it wants to be done. Rajasthan is more a commentary on the Congress’s high command than about Ashok Gehlot or Sachin Pilot.

It feels like a Greek tragedy moving inexorably to its end — the story of two capable leaders, one an old war horse who has survived many a battle and the other a go-getting, rising star, with an appeal to the young. They might have been unbeatable together. But, alas, that is not the way Rajasthan politics is working out.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections)