Rajasthan Elections 2023: Has Congress leadership given up on the state? No poll rally by Rahul Gandhi in last 47 days

Rajasthan elections 2023:

Compared to his aggressive campaigning in other poll-bound states, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is visibly going slow in Rajasthan. He last visited Jaipur on September 23, over a month-and-a-half ago and is now expected to campaign in the desert state after Diwali in the run up to the polling on November 25.

On the other hand, his sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra addressed three rallies in October. Pollsters have predicted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to oust the ruling Congress from power in Rajasthan where no government has returned to power since 1993.

High Command’s Displeasure

It is no hidden fact that the party high command has been upset with Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot ever since his loyalists defied its directive to attend a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting on September 25 last year. As many as 92 legislators boycotted the CLP meeting and instead gathered at state minister Shanti Kumar Dhariwal's residence.

They threatened to resign from the state assembly if former Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot or any of his supporters, who were involved in a failed coup against Gehlot in 2020, was appointed the next chief minister.

Two central observers – Mallikarjun Kharge (now Congress president) and Ajay Maken (now party treasurer) – who were tasked to ensure a smooth transition of power had recommended strong disciplinary action against Dhariwal, party chief whip Mahesh Joshi and Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation chairman Dharmendra Rathore, for convening the parallel meeting.

The developments also marked the beginning of a sour relationship
between the Gandhis and Gehlot who was otherwise considered a staunch loyalist of the family.

Staunch Loyalist’s September 25 Shocker

In fact, it was Gehlot who had requested the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi at the Hyderabad plenary in 2006 to appoint Rahul Gandhi as a general secretary and assign him the responsibilities of the Youth Congress and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), two frontal organisations of the party. Sonia Gandhi finally gave the nod to his proposal in September 2007.

Again, it was at the Jaipur ‘Chintan Shivir (brainstorming session)’ in January 2013 that Rahul Gandhi was elevated as the Congress vice-president with Gehlot being the host and the then Rajasthan chief minister. Gehlot was also instrumental in pushing Rahul Gandhi to accept the reins of the Congress in December 2017 when he was the party general secretary in-charge of organisation.

The Gandhis reposed full faith and trust in Gehlot to an extent that Sonia Gandhi personally requested the veteran leader to take over the reins of the grand old party last year.

Gehlot had accepted her offer and was to file the nominations for the Congress president's elections as a Gandhi family candidate after the September 25 CLP meeting but what happened afterwards is history. While no action was taken against the three by Gehlot or the party subsequently, the Congress leadership had made up its mind to punish them by benching them in the upcoming assembly elections.

While Joshi and Rathore were outright denied tickets, Dhariwal was renominated at the last moment due to Gehlot's repeated requests. He had sent several emissaries to the Congress high command insisting that Dhariwal has a strong chance of retaining his Kota North seat. Accordingly, a fresh survey was conducted after which Dhariwal's name was cleared. In the end, it was a partial victory for the Congress high command.

Bracing For Defeat?

For her part, Priyanka Gandhi has been consistently pitching for Pilot's elevation as the chief minister. She had played a key role in ensuring a rapprochement between Pilot and the Congress high command after his rebellion that nearly brought down the Gehlot government in 2020. On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi had himself cleared a proposal to sack him from the twin posts of the deputy chief minister and the Rajasthan Congress president after his revolt. But he too appears to have softened towards Pilot after Gehlot’s CLP fiasco last year.

It is said that Rahul Gandhi will shift his focus to Rajasthan after Diwali as elections would be over in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh by then. While elections in Mizoram are over, Telangana will go to polls on November 30.

A series of public meetings have been planned for both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi apart from Kharge in Rajasthan. According to various opinion polls, the BJP is set to win Rajasthan but not as comprehensively as it had in 2013.

The BJP leadership had initially decided to sideline former chief minister Vasundhara Raje but eventually surrendered before her, apprehending the move would prove counterproductive. The Congress was banking on Raje's revolt to buck the trend of the incumbent government being voted out of power every five years in Rajasthan, but its calculations seem to have gone wrong.

Aurangzeb Naqshbandi is a senior journalist who has been covering the Congress for 15 years, and is currently associated with Pixstory. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.