Congress stares at historic drubbing in Rajasthan

Everything seems to be going wrong for the Rajasthan Congress with party leaders pinning hopes on just two-three seats out of 25 and fearing that they may be staring at a big defeat in the recently concluded polls.

Pessimism has gripped the party to such an extent that Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Sachin Pilot is yet to organise a post-election review meeting in the state.
“Contrary to the party’s culture, no formal feedback meeting has been called by the PCC after conclusion of the Lok Sabha elections,” said a senior Congress leader. “We have been told that the PCC chief is busy campaigning for the party in other parts of the country,” he added.

Though the party office is wearing a deserted look, regular visitors and office bearers can be seen betting on the defeat margin of the party’s candidates for 22 seats in the state. The partymen believe that they have high prospects of winning only three seats–Nagaur, Karauli-Dholpur and Banswara.

After the informal analysis, they have even divided the defeat margin of their candidates in three slabs. The first slab comprises two constituencies where the defeat margin may exceed over 2 lakh votes.

The second slab consists of 11 seats with a defeat margin of 1-2 lakh, while the last slab consists of 9 seats with a defeat margin of 50,000-1 lakh votes.

Partymen are of the view that leaders like Union minister Bhanwar Jeetendra Singh, Namo Narayan Meena, C P Joshi and Pilot are also in deep trouble and may lose the election by a big margin.

The party is divided over Sachin Pilot’s performance. One camp believes that Pilot is going to continue as the PCC chief, irrespective of the poll outcome.

“Sachin was appointed as PCC chief to revive the party and send a message of shift in generation from the old guards. He was introduced on the local turf just a few weeks before the elections and had no time to work wonders,” said a party MLA.

Another camp believes that Pilot was introduced to polarise his community votes in the party’s favour. There are around 1 lakh Gurjar votes each in 11 constituencies.

“If the Congress settles on only 2-3 seats, it would mean that Pilot failed to charm his community voters. When his leadership is rejected in his own community, how will he be accepted by others?” said a senior leader from the Shekhawati belt.

Earlier PCC chief Chandrabhan was asked to step down after he lost the elections from Mandawa constituency and the party scored an all time low in the Assembly elections. The question doing the rounds in the Congress camp is whether Pilot will meet the same fate.