the big story

Congress readies nail for own coffin

The TLDR: The party is faced with yet another open—and potentially lethal—rebellion from one of its ‘young turks’. This time it’s Sachin Pilot who is threatening to leave the party due to differences with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. He is parked in Delhi and refusing to budge unless the Gandhis take decisive action… which would be both astonishing and unprecedented. So will Congress lose Rajasthan to internal strife, much as it did Madhya Pradesh? Answer: It’s too close to call.

Remind me about this Sachin person…

Much like Jyotiradityarao Scindia and Ajay Maken, he is a ‘legacy’ Congresswala—i.e. the son of a senior party leader. His father, Rajesh Pilot, was a union minister and close buddy of Rajiv Gandhi.  

In 2004, Sachin became the youngest Member of Parliament at the age of 26, and rose to become a cabinet minister in 2012. He lost his Lok Sabha seat in 2014, but staged a comeback as an MLA—and helped architect Congress’ decisive victory in the Rajasthan state elections in 2018. After that victory, Pilot was anointed as Deputy CM and state party chief.

Ok, so what’s his problem?

After the big win in Rajasthan, Pilot expected to be rewarded with the CM gaddi—which instead went to old guard favourite, Ashok Gehlot. But with zero leadership at the top, the rivalry between the two has steadily escalated. Pilot thinks he deserves more, while Gehlot is determined to keep junior in his place.

But all that bickering reached a boiling point due to two main reasons:

One: Gehlot has been pushing to replace Pilot as party chief—enforcing the ‘one man, one post’ rule. Pilot refuses to budge unless he’s allowed to hand pick his successor, and is rewarded with a juicier state cabinet portfolio. 

Two: Gehlot has been talking up a BJP plot to topple his government—claiming that the party is trying to buy his MLAs. But the conspiracy talk has also been used to slyly raise questions about Pilot’s loyalty. 

The immediate trigger: is a case filed against two minor BJP leaders. 

• They have allegedly been caught on tape discussing the prospect of Pilot moving to the BJP—and taking his MLAs with him. 
• An FIR has been issued against the two men. But in an unprecedented move, Pilot and Gehlot have been summoned for questioning.  
• Pilot and his supporters see the summons as one of the many “deliberate and conscious attempts to undermine, undercut and humiliate" the Deputy CM. 
• Gehlot, OTOH, points out that he too has been asked to come in for questioning. 
• The defence is a bit lame given that the CM is also the Home Minister, and essentially the boss of the state police force. 
• As NDTV notes: “[I]f one reads the FIR carefully, it very clearly underlines the fact that it is a chargesheet in disguise against Pilot.”

The result: Pilot’s office now says that he will not attend a legislative meet called by Gehlot. They also claim that he has the support of 30 MLAs, and can bring down the government. Gehlot’s people have pooh-poohed the claim, saying that the party has the numbers to stave off the BJP 

So will Congress stay in power?

The numbers: are on Gehlot’s side. The Congress presently has 107 MLAs and the support of 18 Independents—and is therefore comfortably above the majority mark of 101. Even if 30 MLAs resign, the new majority mark will be 86, but Congress will still have 95  seats—if the 18 Independent candidates stay by its side.

Sachin is not Jyotiraditya: and therefore Rajasthan may not play out like Madhya Pradesh—where Scindia Jr defected to the BJP and brought down the government. Pilot has flatly declared that he will not join the BJP. But he appears willing to leave Congress—perhaps to form a regional party. He told NDTV: "Nobody wants to leave his home, but can't continue to put up with this kind of humiliation; my MLAs and supporters are extremely hurt and I will have to listen to them."

What is the BJP doing?

Waiting and watching. A source told Indian Express: “As of today, the BJP has taken a conscious decision not to do anything, but is watching the developments. Let the crack in the Congress widen enough for the government to fall through.” 

Another reason for BJP’s caution: They can’t offer Pilot the CM gaddi either. Even if it were to oust Congress, former CM Vasundhara Raje has first dibs on the top post. 

So what’s next?

It depends on the Gandhis, of course. A bunch of their loyalists have been dispatched to huddle with Gehlot in Rajasthan. But the family has refused to grant an audience to Pilot who is now parked in Delhi. The point of contention as per unsourced reporting: Pilot won’t settle for less than the CM post, and the first family is unwilling to grant it to him—dismissing the demand as youthful impatience.

The bottomline: The Congress party is now like a slo-mo version of the Titanic, sinking slowly and painfully into irrelevance. The iceberg in this case, btw, is not the BJP but the Gandhi family. That’s sad in itself. What’s as sad is the fate of those who jump ship to save their careers. For instance, this is what Scindia sounds like today:

Reading list

Hindustan Times explains why Pilot is angry. The Telegraph offers the Congress leadership’s unsympathetic view of Pilot’s rebellion. NDTV argues that Congress needs Pilot more than Gehlot. Most interesting angle: Indian Express explains why Rajasthan is not a repeat of MP, and why Pilot is a very different kind of leader than Scindia.