DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR GEHLOT

It was not an uneven match, but the odds were heavily stacked against Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. For, the personage that the Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Jodhpur had been embroiled in a political-turned-legal feud with was none other than his hometown rival Ashok Gehlot, the canny Congress veteran who until last December held the reins as chief minister of Rajasthan.

- Rohit Parihar

"I am the only one of Gehlot's political rivals who could survive his fatal attacks on [their] careers," Shekhawat declared last week, his words hinting at a turning of the tide, as two unrelated developments on September 25 gave him an edge while putting Gehlot in a precarious position.

The roots of this feud can be traced back to 2020 when Gehlot, armed with leaked phone recordings, accused both Shekhawat and his own party colleague, Sachin Pilot, of attempting to topple his government. While Pilot was stripped of his positions as deputy chief minister and state Congress chief, the leaked recordings became the subject of intense scrutiny. Handled by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police and later transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the case included even sedition charges for 'horse-trading', which were later dropped.