Ashok Gehlot’s ambitious push to rewrite Rajasthan politics

Ashok Gehlot, 72, is making bold bid to redraw Rajasthan's politics. He is campaigning hard, addressing 4-5 rallies/day and covering 800 km/day. Surveys and voices in street vouch for his popularity. He has set agenda and BJP is reacting. Congress campaign is built around 7 guarantees. Gehlot is master in juggling ideas, interests & people. He wears Hindu identity but Muslims and tribals swear by him. BJP campaign laced with Hindu hurt & Muslim threat. Gehlot urges voters to guard against emotive reactions. He leaves CM decision to party high command.

For the last three decades, Rajasthan politics has followed a template in which the incumbent gets voted out in every Assembly election. But this time is going to be different, Congress Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot – who has himself been voted out twice – says.

“We are winning another term. People have figured it out, and governments that listen to them, provide them relief, succour and support, get re-elected. We have done that in the last five years, and the voters recognise that,” Mr. Gehlot says, settling in for an exclusive interview well past midnight, but by no means his last engagement of Sunday. There are people waiting, advisers mill around to plan the next day, and there were phone calls to be returned. “It will be 2 a.m. before he could sleep,” says an aide. And the next day begins by 7 a.m.

At 72, Mr. Gehlot is making the boldest bid of his career, to redraw the deeply etched pattern of politics in Rajasthan where two national parties have alternated in power every five years. Addressing four or five rallies a day, covering up to 800 km some days, he is trying to reach as far and wide as possible as campaigning peaks ahead of polling scheduled for November 25.

All surveys, and voices in the street, vouch for his popularity that is above the rest in the State. Party candidates want to ride Mr. Gehlot’s popularity, and several of them are trying to get him to their constituencies in the last days of campaigning. “I am overwhelmed,” Mr. Gehlot says, about the crowds that throng his routes.

“We have built a unique and new architecture of welfare and social security. Nobody needs to worry about healthcare… For the first time in the country, and in an example the world is taking note of, we have legislated a security net for gig workers in the State. We are ensuring that farmers are not dispossessed of their land due to debt, we are bringing the old pension scheme back,” he says, helping himself to a small fruit platter. A vegetarian, he shares whatever people offer him along the way every day.

His day begins with meeting people who have arrived at his residence by 9 a.m. By then he will have scanned numerous newspapers and news channels. He is attentive to the brewing public opinion when he is not shaping it himself. “He has set the agenda this time, and the BJP is reacting to him,” a political strategist who works with Mr. Gehlot says.

The Congress campaign is built around seven guarantees. “We will give an annual honorarium of ₹10,000 to women heads of the family, the government will purchase animal dung at ₹2 per kg to help farmers, every student joining a government college will get a laptop or a tablet, the Chiranjeevi health insurance that covers up to ₹25 lakh in medical expenses will expand to include accident insurance of ₹15 lakh, English-medium schooling will be free for all, one crore families will get cooking gas at ₹500 per cylinder – 76 lakh families already get it – and the restoration of the old pension scheme will be legislated,” Mr. Gehlot lists the seven guarantees that form core of the Congress campaign.