Sachin Pilot calls on Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to discuss Rajasthan impasse

This was Mr. Pilot’s second meeting with Mr. Kharge in eight days.

Former Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan Sachin Pilot met newly-elected Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday to discuss the political stalemate in the State, where a meeting of the Congress Legislative Party was aborted on September 25 due to a rebellion by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot supporters.

This was Mr. Pilot’s second meeting with Mr. Kharge in the last eight days. Mr. Pilot had met Mr. Kharge on October 19, soon after he was declared the winner in a contest with Shashi Tharoor in a landslide verdict. Sources said that the two leaders had discussed the political situation in the State and the Congress’s electoral strategy going into the next Assembly polls scheduled for October-November 2023. Mr. Pilot, though confirming the meeting, refused to comment any further.

Mr. Kharge, who was sent as one of the Central observers along with State in-charge Ajay Maken witnessed the rebellion first-hand in Jaipur. He and Mr. Maken waited at Mr. Gehlot’s residence where the Congress Legislative Party was to meet till late night in vain for the Congress MLAs to turn up.

According to sources close to Mr. Kharge, he was not keen on taking up the tricky Rajasthan problem just yet. “There is no immediate crisis in the State. We have an elected Chief Minister who is in place and who is doing good work,” a senior leader said.

The meeting was called by the Central leadership to pick Mr. Gehlot’s successor because he was back then slated to run for the Congress Presidential election. A bus-load of legislators, submitted their resignation to Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi, claiming that they would not let “anyone responsible for the 2020 failed coup” to lead the government. The comment was aimed at Mr. Pilot, who, protesting against the selective exclusion of MLAs supporting him in the power structure of the State, had rebelled against Mr. Gehlot in 2020.

Left red-faced by the defiance shown by its MLAs, the Central leadership served show cause notices to three leaders- Rajasthan Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal, State chief whip Mahesh Joshi and MLA Dharmendra Rathore. When reminded about the pending investigations against the three, the senior Congress leader said that the investigations into their role was being done by the Disciplinary Action Committee of the party and Mr. Kharge had little role in it.

Though there was a dominant view in the party that Mr. Kharge could not ignore, the Rajasthan deadlock, since the rebellion by Mr. Gehlot supporters was a direct snub to the Congress President’s office. “If it is allowed to fester, then you are putting the Congress President’s office in jeopardy and if a similar crisis erupts in any State, the President’s office will not be able to play the neutral arbitrator’s role,” another leader added.