Departure lounge

Pilot-Gehlot tussle is an all too familiar story in the Congress

- SONI MISHRA

AT THE CONGRESS Working Committee meeting held shortly after the party’s humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections last year, Rahul Gandhi hit out at three senior leaders for putting their children before the party’s interests in the polls. While he did not name them, it was clear that one of them was Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in whose state the party’s tally was an embarrassing zero and he had failed to ensure even his son Vaibhav’s victory from home turf Jodhpur.

In the aftermath of the Lok Sabha debacle, this was exactly the line adopted by the camp of Gehlot’s bete noire Sachin Pilot, a young leader belonging to the Rahul brigade which has been at odds with the party’s old guard. Leaders close to Pilot raised questions about Gehlot’s leadership and demanded a change of guard.

The Lok Sabha disaster was an opportunity for Pilot to hit back at Gehlot, who he believed had snatched the chief minister’s post from him. Pilot, who was state Congress president from 2013, had worked hard for the party’s victory in the assembly elections and was hoping to get the top post, but had to be content with that of the deputy.

The campaign against Gehlot, however, fizzled out as the same CWC meeting marked a major change in the power dynamics in the party. At the meeting on May 25, 2019, Rahul announced that he was stepping down as party president, and this led to Sonia Gandhi taking over as interim president a few months down the line. Thus began the process of the old guard, sidelined during Rahul’s tenure, making a comeback and consolidating its hold over the party.