Congress is stable in Rajasthan after party central leadership's intervention, but for how long?

The widening chasm between old guard versus the new generation that came for during the desert storm in Rajasthan politics, seems to have been papered over for the time being with Congress central leadership making a last-minute intervention to ensure it does not lose another state won just less two years ago.

The million-dollar question is how long this cosmetic unity will remain, especially when leaders from both the rival camps are not willing to give their claims to the top job.

The truce worked out to buy temporary peace ensured that Ashok Gehlot remains Chief Minister “for now” with Sachin Pilot’s loyalists about to get more meaty portfolios after a state cabinet reshuffle soon and Sachin Pilot, who could not show the claimed support of 30 legislators as 89 of 107 Congress MLAs attended a meeting of Gehlot, making it clear that he is not joining the BJP.

READ: Not joining BJP, says Sachin Pilot as crisis brews in Rajasthan

The saffron party, which had had recent experience of both success and failure on engineering a proper split in Congress in Madhya Pradesh and NCP in Maharashtra chose to exercise caution and despite some earlier bravado of Congress in crisis finally chose to make clear that no promise was made to Sachin Pilot in case he chooses to switch sides.

BJP was able to snatch Madhya Pradesh from Congress, which it had lost in 2018 after the troika of Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia had come together to win back the state after a 15 years gap, realising well that they do not stand a chance other way.

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The cosmetic unity forced down from the top and accepted grudgingly cracked as Nath and Singh joined hands to prevent Scindia from becoming Chief Minister and later the royal scion from Scindia family was not offered even the state chief’s post. When Scindia quit the Congress and joined the BJP, two dozen MLAs followed him, reducing the majority mark in the state and helping Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s comeback as BJP’s Chief Minister in March.

In Maharashtra, when the BJP earlier tried to engineer a split in NCP by inducing Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar as Deputy CM in November last year after the hung mandate, the Junior Pawar miserably failed to bring the promised number of legislators with him and finally made with his uncle Sharad Pawar, leading to huge embarrassment to the ruling BJP.

Unlike Scindia, who was cut up after not being offered state chief’s post and unwilling to be Dy CM under Nath, Pilot has more of an ego tussle as he already holds both the positions in Rajasthan. Unlike Scindia, whose writ runs large in a particular swathe of the state, which sends nearly 30 MLAs, Pilot’s appeal is limited to a particular community Gujjar. BJP has already an influential leaders including Kirori Singh Bainsla.

Clearly there is also a realisation in the Congress it cannot let its pack crumble like this sort of an effort to placate the young leadership has begun. The appointment of young Hardik Patel as party’s Working President in Gujarat is to be seen in that context.

Both Scindia and Pilot, the young Turks were considered part of Rahul Gandhi’s team.

Earlier in the fight versus the young and the veterans, many of the leaders, who were once state close to Rahul, had to ultimately leave the party of were side-lined like Pratap Singh Bajwa and Navjot Sidhu in Punjab, Ajoy Kumar in Jharkhand, Ashok Tanwar in Haryana, Sanjay Nirupam in Maharashtra and Pradyot Deb Barman in Tripura.

Some joined BJP and AAP, some others floated their own outfit. Which way Pilot lands his politics will be seen in time to come.