Infight pushes Rajasthan govt to the brink of collapse

The blame game started by Congress MLAs over the party's loss in Rajasthan has led into another episode of infighting between CM Ashok Gehlot and his Deputy CM Sachin Pilot which could cause the collapse of the Congress government in Rajasthan.

The Congress leaders and party men are missing any opportunity to humiliate their bosses by giving statements against them. The popular narrative set by Congressmen who are supporters of Pilot is that CM Gehlot is responsible for the debacle in Rajasthan.

"Ashok Gehlot focused on his son Vaibhav Gehlot who lost with margin of two lakh votes. What shame is that he couldn't even win from his father's constituency. Senior Gehlot ignored the other candidates due to which party performed bad in Rajasthan", a Congress leader close to Pilot told DH.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is reported to be miffed with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for devoting time to his son, and has reportedly denied him an appointment to meet to review the poll performance.

However, Congress leaders close to Gehlot see no reason to hold him responsible for the loss, as the party was wiped out in the entire state.

Sachin Pilot became Congress chief of Rajasthan in 2014 ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. However, both in 2014 and 2019 party drew a blank under his leadership. Later in 2018 Congress won two LS seats in the bypolls and scored 100 seats in 2018 assembly polls under him.

Congress to meet

There were also alleged resignations of Congress minister Lal Chand Kataria and the rumour of withdrawal of support by six Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs by being unhappy with the functioning of government in Rajasthan. Following this, the Congress party has called for a meeting in Jaipur headquarters on Wednesday.

On Sunday evening, an alleged resignation of agriculture minister Lal Chand Kataria circulated on social media, titled press release, stating “taking moral responsibility of the party defeat”, he wished to “resign from cabinet”. However, both the Governor's office and CM's office did not confirm this.

The BSP MLAs sought time to meet the governor but the meeting was postponed as one of the MLAs could not to be there.

Congress leader and Rajasthan election incharge Avinash Pande appealed to the workers and leaders for maintaining calm. "A meeting will be held for introspecting elections results and all congressmen will get opportunity to express their opinions", Pandey told media.