Gehlot, Pilot show unity ahead of Rajasthan bypolls

The Assembly bypolls in Rajasthan have brought arch-rivals Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot to the same stage.

Pilot, who had led an unsuccessful rebellion against Gehlot last year, shared the stage with the chief minister and the duo addressed three rallies for Congress candidates in Assembly bypolls of Sujangarh, Sahada and Rajsamand.

Bye-elections in the three Assembly seats will be held on April 17 and the Congress candidates filed their nomination papers on Tuesday. Pilot, under whose leadership the Congress won the Rajasthan Assembly elections in 2018, was pipped to the post of the chief minister by Gehlot, leaving him as the deputy chief minister.

After the failed coup last year, Pilot was stripped of the posts of the deputy chief minister and the president of the Rajasthan unit of Congress and awaiting reinstatement. Last month, Pilot had shared a helicopter ride with Gehlot to Bikaner and Chittorgarh to address farmers’ rallies, apparently at the instance of the central leadership.

Pilot has been meeting his supporters and touring parts of the state in a bid to send signals to the party leadership about his popularity among the party workers. He had also addressed large gatherings of farmers – ‘kisan mahapanchayats’ in the state. The Congress has deployed Pilot as a star campaigner in Assam and West Bengal elections. The former Rajasthan deputy chief minister drew huge crowds in Silchar in Assam where he addressed rallies last week.

The three Assembly seats fell vacant after the deaths of Congress MLAs Bhanwarlal Meghwal (Sujangarh) and Kailash Trivedi (Sahada), and BJP MLA Kiran Maheshwari (Rajasamand). While Meghwal, a minister in the Gehlot government died of brain stroke, Trivedi and Maheshwari fell victim to Covid-19. Congress has fielded Meghwal’s son Manoj Meghwal from Sujangarh, Trivedi’s widow Gayatri Devi from Sahada and social worker Tansukh Bohara from Rajasmand.