Amid a festering tussle in the Rajasthan Congress unit and with few months left to the Assembly elections as well as the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress party said that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot
have agreed to “go together” and fight the upcoming election unitedly.
The two leaders met the party high command in New Delhi on Monday, first separately and then together. The meeting comes days after Pilot took out a five-day yatra from Ajmer to Jaipur demanding a high-level inquiry by the Congress government into alleged corruption cases against the previous Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government.
Following the meeting, AICC general secretary in charge of organisation K C Venugopal announced that both of them have “unitedly and unanimously” agreed to a “proposal”.
“In view of the upcoming Rajasthan Assembly election, Congress president (Kharge) and Rahul Gandhi had a detailed four-hour-long discussion with Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot,” Venugopal said.
“In this discussion, we have decided to fight the election unitedly. Both of them are in agreement that the Congress party has to go together and definitely we will win elections in Rajasthan. It is very clear that Rajasthan is going to be a strong state for the Congress party. We are going to win. Therefore, both the leaders unitedly and unanimously agreed to the proposal…,” he added.
When asked about the proposal to Venugopal, he said, “Both of them have left it to the high command. The high command will take the decision. Don’t worry about that. We decided that both the leaders have agreed to go together and it will be a joint fight against the BJP and we will win the state.”
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Venugopal and AICC in charge of Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa met Gehlot first. The meeting went on for two hours.
Pilot then reached Kharge’s residence at 8 PM, and the meeting also went on for two hours. The two leaders then emerged together shortly after 10 PM, and stood on either side of Venugopal, but however, did not speak to the media.
In an attempt to show up a united face, the Congress party also released a photo showing all Congress leaders – Kharge, Gandhi, Gehlot, Pilot, Venugopal and Randhawa.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also tweeted saying, “The Congress party is well on its way to repeating its Karnataka success in Rajasthan as well.”
Meanwhile, in a tweet, Venugopal also said, “Our team in Rajasthan will unitedly fight the 2023 elections and break the decades-long tradition of alternating governments by registering a thumping victory!”
Hours before the meeting, on Monday morning, Gehlot, in an apparent jibe at the party’s top brass, said that it is not the tradition of Congress to offer any position to any leader or worker to pacify him.
“Never in my life have I seen a tradition in Congress that a leader demands something or high command asks him what post he wants…High Command & Congress party are so strong that such a situation will not arise that you are making an offer to pacify someone. It has never happened, it will never happen,” Gehlot said, when asked about various “formulae” being worked out to placate Pilot.
When asked about Pilot being made the state Congress president again, Gehlot said that these are “created” stories by the media.
“The high command is strong even today. Such a situation has not come when it offers any leader a post of his choice to pacify him. Such a thing has not happened before and will not happen in the future. The Congress party and the high command are very strong and no leader or worker has the courage to demand any position. It does not happen like that,” Gehlot said.