Rahul Gandhi's Yatra And Uneasy Truce In Rajasthan
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2022-11-29 15:21:19
About the Author
After the
trusted aide of the Gandhi family and senior Congress leader K C Venugopal flew
into Jaipur to oversee the preparations for the Rahul Gandhi yatra that is
slated to enter the state on December 4, he is reported to have spoken to both chief
minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noir Sachin Pilot to defuse the tensions
that were simmering between the two camps after Gehlot had called Pilot a 'gaddar' in a recent interview to ndtv.com. The result was that both leaders stood on
the same platform to brief the press about the preparations for the yatra. Both
stressed that the party is supreme and that the yatra will be welcomed with
maximum energy in the state.
With this,
it seems that the fireworks expected after the Gehlot interview will not
materialize till the yatra is over. After Rahul Gandhi called both the leaders
assets to the Congress and after Venugopal intervened, perhaps with a special
message from Sonia Gandhi, both Pilot and Gehlot have receded to their corners temporarily. But this is an uneasy truce and the party will have to do a lot of firefighting before the assembly elections next year.
But in
Rajasthan, it now seems that the Pilot camp has been clearly outsmarted and
heavily reduced in strength by the wily Gehlot. Hence, Sachin Pilot is in no
position take on the chief minister. Still, a seasoned politician like him will
not take the insult lying down and even though he has backed off right now, he
will strike at an opportune time. If he finds it suffocating to remain in the
party, he might look at other options. The fact is that the people of Rajasthan
never vote the incumbent back to power since the 1990s. If the trend continues,
Congress will make way for the BJP in 2023. Pilot has time till the state elections
in 2023 to decide what he wants to do.
