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Journalism of Courage
He can fly aircraft, talk as smoothly in English in a television studio in Noida, as in Hindi in remote parts of Rajasthan, and is one of the last leaders in Rajasthan who can command a crowd wherever they go.
The natural progression, for Sachin Pilot and for his supporters, was him taking over the reins as Rajasthan Chief Minister from Ashok Gehlot.
However, the 45-year-old was kept waiting, and having bided his time for more than a decade in the Congress, he appears to have decided that enough was enough.
On Tuesday, defying the high command yet again in his long fight with Gehlot – after the 2020 rebellion – Pilot began his day-long dharna demanding action in corruption cases he claimed had been pending from Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government’s tenures.
Pilot’s supporters say that unlike other young guns from political dynasties in the Congress, he had earned his right to the CM job. The party sent him to Rajasthan as PCC president after the 2013 Assembly elections had reduced the Congress to just 21 seats in the 200-member House – its worst performance ever.
The fact that the Congress crossed the half-way mark in the 2018 polls, winning 100 of the 195 seats it contested, was largely a result of Pilot’s toils, with the then PCC chief hunkering down in the state for five years, re-building the party.
To be sidelined for Gehlot then, with the Congress typically trying to ride both boats, had come as a bitter pill for Pilot.
His detractors, however, say that the game was won fair and square by the older leader, who continues to command the loyalty of most of the party MLAs. For many of them, Pilot is standoffish and difficult to work with, unlike the ever-smiling, ever-assuring and all-pleasing Gehlot.
The son of the late Rajesh Pilot, who himself owed his political presence to proximity to Rajiv Gandhi, Sachin Pilot studied at Delhi University’s St Stephens College, followed by Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, and worked as an intern at the BBC and at General Motors.
It was Rajesh Pilot’s death in a road accident in 2000 that pushed the junior Pilot into politics. After Rajesh Pilot’s death, the Dausa Lok Sabha seat passed on to his wife Rama, who represented it between 2001 and 2004.
Sachin Pilot’s win from Dausa in his first-ever election in 2004, at the age of 26, made the youngest ever Lok Sabha MP of the country. The same year, he married Sara Pilot, the daughter of Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah and sister of Omar Abdullah, with whom he went on to have two sons.
The wedding, which saw initial resistance from the Abdullahs, further burnished Pilot’s credentials. He is also a Captain in the Territorial Army personnel, with his Twitter display photo featuring him dressed in uniform.
Meanwhile, Pilot kept rising within the Congress. After he won from Dausa a second time, in 2009, he was made Union Minister of State, Communications and Information Technology, a position he held till October 2012. Following a Cabinet reshuffle by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Pilot was promoted to Union MoS (Independent Charge), Corporate Affairs.
It was against this backdrop, and the Congress’s dispiriting performance in the 2013 Rajasthan Assembly elections, that the party sent Pilot to shore up its fortunes in the state. The 2013 Assembly debacle was followed by the loss of all 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state to the BJP in 2014.
However, what was supposed to be the crowning jewel in his political career has turned out to be one built of thorns. With the Congress truncated at the Centre, the only course forward for Pilot is in Rajasthan, where Gehlot has not let him grow.
Apart from the MLAs supporting him, Gehlot’s caste – OBC Mali – works in his favour. Pilot is a Gujjar.
Since being pipped to the post in 2018, all the news concerning Pilot has been about him making thwarted attempts to become CM.
Could his latest bid finally turn the tide in his favour? Even if it doesn’t, the 45-year-old cannot be faulted for not trying.
