Former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot’s visit to the Hadoti region in south-eastern Rajasthan on Monday drew huge crowds of Congress workers, who gave a rousing welcome to him, in a show of strength amid the standoff in the ruling party. Mr. Pilot also visited his Assembly constituency, Tonk, on Tuesday on his way back to Jaipur.
Mr. Pilot reached Kota by train on Monday afternoon and headed to Jhalawar, the home turf of BJP leader and former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, where he attended a programme to felicitate meritorious students of Aheer Yadav community. None of the Congress MLAs or Ministers from the region accompanied Mr. Pilot during his tour.
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Pilot attacked the BJP government at the Centre and accused the top BJP leadership of creating a rift among the people. “The BJP’s rhetoric will not last long... The key to power is in the hands of the people,” Mr. Pilot said, while drawing people’s attention to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which he said was getting an overwhelming support.
However, Mr. Pilot’s remarks that the Congress came to power in Rajasthan in 2018 because of the strength of party workers who had toiled hard for five years under his leadership, when he was the Pradesh Congress Committee president, were perceived as a “veiled message” to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot as well as the Congress high command. The ruling party in the State witnessed a crisis recently following the attempts made allegedly for change of guard.
Mr. Pilot, who was sacked as Deputy CM and PCC president after he staged a rebellion in July 2020, said he and the Congress workers had fought for the farmers and poor people. “We have a collective responsibility to live up to the expectations of public, farmers, youths and party workers. Our goal is to form the Congress government once again in 2023,” he said, while talking to reporters in Kota.
Besides confronting the BJP, Mr. Pilot seems to have thrown a challenge by his Hadoti visit to Urban Development Minister Shanti Dhariwal, representing Kota (North) in the State Assembly, who is considered a staunch loyalist of Mr. Gehlot. The MLAs had gathered at Mr. Dhariwal’s residence in Jaipur on September 25 instead of attending a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting and threatened to resign, which led to a turmoil.
The Congress leaders in Kota said that Mr. Pilot had started touring the State as part of preparations for the 2023 Assembly election. In Kota, Mr. Pilot met Sangod MLA Bharat Singh for half-an-hour, giving rise to speculations about new political equations. Mr. Singh later said he had personal relations with Mr. Pilot, as his father Rajesh Pilot had joined his election campaign when he contested his first Assembly polls in 1993.
Mr. Dhariwal’s followers maintained a distance from the events attended by Mr. Pilot. On his way back to the State Capital, Mr. Pilot reached Tonk and went to some villages, where he met the farmers and inspected the damage caused to kharif crops by the recent unseasonal rains.
Mr. Pilot asked the district officials to prepare the assessment report on the crop failure at the earliest and extend relief to the affected farmers. On being apprised of the shortage of diammonium phosphate fertiliser in the district, Mr. Pilot assured the farmers that the Agriculture Department would shortly make arrangements for its supply.
