How the Congress Got Sachin Pilot Back

Sachin Pilot Rajasthan Congress

Faced with the difficult choices of joining the BJP or surrendering to the Congress, Sachin Pilot has opted for the latter, for now  

With Sachin Pilot ending his rebellion, there is only one winner in the month-long battle between the titans of the Rajasthan Congress—Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. He got Pilot removed as his deputy in the government and the president of the State party, positions Pilot is unlikely to get back. Gehlot also ensured that most Congress MLAs backed him. In the end, when Pilot and the 18 MLAs who support him come back to the Congress, Gehlot has consolidated more power.

What went wrong for Pilot? The plan, Congress sources say, was to topple the Rajasthan government. The BJP’s invisible hand was there throughout the crisis. There was an audiotape that emerged online showing a BJP leader talking to rebel MLAs on pulling down the Gehlot government. Pilot and his supporters moved to a resort in the BJP-ruled Haryana where Rajasthan police were prevented by the local cops from questioning the rebels. The Centre-appointed governor of Rajasthan tried his best to delay the assembly session. But all these were not enough to pull down the Gehlot government as we explained earlier.

BJP’s three problems

There were three problems for the BJP. One, it has only 72 seats in the 200-member Assembly, unlike in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP’s tally was closer to majority. Two, Pilot overestimated his support among the Congress legislators. The Pilot camp leaked to the media in the early days of the crisis that some 40 MLAs had backed him, which would have been enough to pull down the government and support a new BJP-led administration. But with 19 MLAs, including Pilot, this was not possible. Plus, the MLAs faced disqualification under the anti-defection law. 

Three, the BJP’s leader in the state and former chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia showed little interest–perhaps she saw no real possibility–in toppling the Gehlot government. Most BJP MLAs in the state are Scindia loyalists. So the BJP was left with an option of launching the Rajasthan edition of ‘Operation Kamal’ with no certainty of victory or back off. They aborted the plan.

Pilot’s options

This left Pilot in the lurch. He doesn’t have the support of enough MLAs. The BJP is not ready to dirty itself without having enough numbers. So Pilot was left with three options. One, leave the Congress, face disqualification and rebuild a political career in the BJP, with no immediate benefits in return. This is a risky game both in short term and long term for a man who built his political career on his opposition to the BJP. 

Two, launch a new political party in Rajasthan, opposing both the BJP and the Congress. Pilot, unlike his father Rajesh, was born into comfort. He’s a carrier of his father’s legacy rather than a fighter himself. Floating a new party would not be easy, especially in a state where the Congress and the BJP are fighting face to face. The third option was to end his rebellion and surrender to the Congress party. Though it’s humiliating, it would be the safest option to save his political career.

Congress’s overture

The Congress knew that Pilot was in a corner. And the party leadership did not want to lose him. They reached out to him again. The high command reprimanded Gehlot from making public statements against Pilot. The Rajasthan chief minister was ready to accept the high command decision to reinduct the rebels into the party. But on one condition—Pilot should not be made the Deputy Chief Minister again. Gehlot told the high command that taking him in the cabinet now would send a very wrong message to party workers. In their meeting with Pilot, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra Gandhi told Pilot that they would address his concerns but he couldn’t return to the party’s top brass in Rajasthan. Pilot didn’t want to work with Gehlot either. He raised his demand once again to become the Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

The Gandhis told him that most MLAs support Gehlot and that they can’t change the government at this time. But they promised him they would look into the matter closer to the next assembly election. Till then, Pilot could be a Congress general secretary with the responsibility of some state other than Rajasthan. The Pilot camp says it could be Delhi so that he can remain active in Rajasthan politics as well. Congress president Sonia Gandhi also decided to set up a committee to look into the concerns of the Pilot camp.

So a tenuous truce has taken hold in Rajasthan. Compared to the mess in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress did well in managing the crisis. But it doesn’t mean that the Gehlot government or the party in the state is free from trouble. The fight between Gehlot and Pilot is far from over. 

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