Two days after Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot claimed that BJP leader Vasundhara Raje and two other leaders from the opposition party helped him save his government during the 2020 political crisis, Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Tuesday came out all guns blazing alleging that Gehlot’s real leader is Vasundhara Raje and not Sonia Gandhi.
“After hearing the Chief Minister’s speech, I think his leader is not Sonia Gandhi but his leader is Vasundhara Raje,” Pilot said.
“He alleges that BJP tried to topple his government. Then he says a BJP leader helped save his government. He should explain the contradiction.”
Pilot accused Gehlot of insulting Congress MLAs and harming his own party ahead of the Assembly elections in the state scheduled to be held later this year.
Speaking to reporters in Rajasthan, Pilot announced ‘Jan Sangharsh Yatra’ from Ajmer to Jaipur on May 11, to highlight issues of corruption.
The scathing attack follows Gehlot’s statement on Sunday at a rally in Dholpur district, which is also Raje’s stronghold.
Gehlot had claimed that during the crisis of 2020 — when Sachin Pilot and 18 of his MLAs had rebelled against him — Raje and BJP leader Kailash Meghwal had opposed the BJP’s attempts to bribe MLAs.
He also praised Shobharani Kushwaha, the BJP MLA who had broken ranks with the Opposition party and supported the Congress during the Rajya Sabha elections.
Gehlot claimed that Union Ministers Amit Shah, Dharmendra Pradhan and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat were involved in the “conspiracy” to topple the government.
Hours later, Raje dismissed the chief minister’s statement as a lie and conspiracy against her, stating: “The Chief Minister’s praise for me is a major conspiracy by him. He is lying out of fear of losing the 2023 Assembly elections.”
Raje said that bribery is a crime and that if MLAs have taken money, FIRs should be registered against them. “He has made such outrageous statements because of the rebellion happening in his own party. As far as horse trading is concerned, Gehlot himself is the mastermind behind it,” she said, as quoted by The Indian Express
The former Rajasthan chief minister also added that Gehlot had unfairly accused Home Minister Shah, “whose honesty and integrity are well known”.
Gehlot’s statement came a day after Pilot reiterated his demand for an investigation into alleged corruption cases during the tenure of the previous BJP government led by Raje.
Rajasthan political crisis in 2020
The Rajasthan government had plunged into a crisis in July 2020, when the then deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other party MLAs rebelled against Gehlot’s leadership. Pilot along with 18 MLAs loyal to him had camped for over a month in Manesar in Haryana and Delhi .
The crisis ended after the intervention of the party high command who then removed Pilot as the deputy chief minister and state Congress president.