Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met with Rajasthan leader Sachin Pilot this evening, days after a leadership change in Punjab. This is Sachin Pilot’s second meeting in less than a week with the Gandhis, who reportedly want him to take charge of Gujarat ahead of elections in the state next year.
Mr Pilot, however, remains focused on Rajasthan, say sources, and extracting an assurance of being made Chief Minister. This meeting is being seen as an attempt by the Gandhis to defer a leadership change in Rajasthan, where party veteran Ashok Gehlot, 70, is Chief Minister.
The 45-minute discussion between Mr Pilot and the Gandhis in Delhi comes days after the Congress settled its affairs in neighbouring Punjab – where elections are also due early next year – by appointing a new chief minister.
Soon after Captain Amarinder Singh was replaced as Chief Minister in Punjab, just four months before polls, some reports talked about the Congress attempting similar moves in the two other states it rules, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Whether Mr Pilot, 44, has agreed to manage the Congress’s Gujarat campaign is not known; however, he is known to have his own ambitions in Rajasthan, that of becoming the Chief Minister.
Mr Pilot has been waiting to see his loyalists inducted into the Rajasthan cabinet, and this matter was likely discussed during his meeting with the Gandhis.
Mr Gehlot has been under pressure for a while to go for a cabinet expansion to accommodate Mr Pilot’s loyalists. So far the Chief Minister has resisted making the changes that his party leadership had promised to Mr Pilot, who was Deputy Chief Minister till June last year when he was made to resign by the party.
Mr Gehlot – already a two-time Chief Minister by 2018 – was made the Chief Minister again after the Congress won the assembly election that year. But it was not an easy decision for the party as Mr Pilot was also eyeing the top post. The younger Congress leader is credited with rebuilding the party. He was made Rajasthan Congress chief after the party’s washout in the 2013 state election.
Last year, Mr Pilot supported by 18 Congress MLAs ended a month-long revolt against Mr Gehlot only after a meeting with the Gandhis, who apparently assured him that their grievances would be heard by a three-member committee that includes Priyanka Gandhi.
