Will Pilot float a new party on June 11? Question up in air amid talk of his April 11, May 11 moves

Pilot has been locked in an intense power struggle with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for years now. And June 11 marks the death anniversary of his father and former Congress leader Rajesh Pilot, who had passed away in a road accident on the day 23 years ago.

Earlier this year, Pilot had twice sought to up the ante against Gehlot – on April 11 and May 11. Defying the party’s diktat that his protest would be “anti-party activity” and “against the party’s interests”, Pilot sat on a day-long dharna on April 11 at Jaipur’s Shaheed Smarak, demanding action in corruption cases allegedly linked to the previous Vasundhara Raje-led BJP regime in the state.

Then on May 11, Pilot began his five-day long “Jan Sangharsh Yatra” from Ajmer to Jaipur to raise the issues concerning youth and corruption. After completing it, Pilot held a rally in Jaipur in a show of strength and made three demands – that the “corruption-ridden” Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) be dissolved, reconstituted and backed by a new law; compensation be provided to “lakhs of students” who have suffered financial hardship due to paper leaks; and a high-level inquiry be conducted into alleged corruption cases that took place under the Raje government. He also said if the three demands were not met by May-end, he will launch a state-wide agitation.

There is a Congress section that seeks to link Pilot’s possible bid to make a major announcement on June 11 to his April 11 and May 11 moves, besides underlining the point that June 11 is his father’s death anniversary.

However, the significance of June 11 in the context of the CM Gehlot-Pilot tussle is not new.

In June 2020, a month before Pilot raised the banner of revolt against the Gehlot dispensation, there were murmurs of some Congress MLAs turning rebel and cross-voting for the BJP to help the latter get its second candidate elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state.

Back then, there was a buzz that a slew of Congress leaders and MLAs affiliated to Pilot, who was then Deputy CM and state Congress chief, would rebel around June 11.

However, Gehlot had got wind of it and on June 10, he made a couple of moves. First, the ruling camp’s MLAs and ministers were called to the CM’s residence in Jaipur on the pretext of a meeting. From there, they were packed into buses and sent to Shiv Vilas resort. The move took most legislators by surprise, some of whom sought permission to go home and get their clothes and medicines first. The sequestering of MLAs prevented their “poaching”.

Second, the Home Department under Gehlot announced the same day that the state’s borders had been sealed in view of the then prevailing Covid pandemic.

These measures “pre-empted” a Pilot-led rebellion, if there was one as suspected by the Gehlot camp. However, Gehlot then did not mount a direct attack on Pilot, keeping his guns trained on the BJP as he charged that the Congress MLAs were being offered Rs 25 crore each for jumping ship.

After the Congress managed to get both its candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan, Pilot, in an apparent rebuff to Gehlot, said that “The MLAs of our party, the MLAs supporting them, be it independents or from other parties, all of them voted for the party’s two candidates as was expected according to number”, adding that whatever was charged earlier was “baseless”.

When Pilot finally rebelled along with a number of his loyalist MLAs in July 2020, Gehlot said, “The game that is happening now, this would have happened on June 10.” The CM claimed that while some “cars were being sent to Manesar at 2 am”, allegedly with MLAs in them, the plan for the morning was “it was Rajesh Pilot’s death anniversary in the morning (of June 11)…(The plan was Rajesh Pilot’s) statue will be garlanded, some people will go straight to the airport from there, and move out. But I exposed that conspiracy and called everyone (to my residence).”

The developments of the last two months in the backdrop of the 2020 episode have given rise to intense speculations about Pilot’s next move. Although he may not launch a new party, Pilot is expected to announce his next course of action on June 11 since the deadline given to the Gehlot government for fulfilment of his three demands has passed.