With the Assembly election a year away, trouble in the Rajasthan Congress unit shows no signs of abating. Recently, a minister in the Ashok Gehlot government expressed his discontent and sought to resign from his position. In a tweet, Rajasthan’s sports and youth affairs minister Ashok Chandna pointed out that the chief minister should transfer his departments to Kuldeep Ranka, the CM’s principal secretary. While since then Chandna seems to have smoked the peace pipe following a meeting with Gehlot, the disenchantment among leaders of the Rajasthan Congress is hardly a secret.
With the growing infighting, party leaders are also pointing at the bureaucratisation of power, popularly known as the “Kothari” culture. The Congress high command, which has rarely shown maturity in handling infighting, should immediately look into Rajasthan to put the house in order. Unless something changes soon, the grand old party might lose one of the few states where it is in power.
Chandna is not the only one who has expressed his discontent. Earlier this month, tribal leader Ganesh Ghogra clashed with the state bureaucracy over distribution of land titles. On May 18, Ghogra, Rajasthan Youth Congress chief who represents Dungarpur in the Assembly, announced his resignation as a legislator, claiming he had been ignored as a ruling party MLA.
High Command Ignored Early Warnings
The seeds of the Congress infighting in Rajasthan were sown during the distribution of tickets ahead of the 2018 Assembly election. Sachin Pilot, who was then Rajasthan Congress president, kept many grassroots Congressmen out of the ticket distribution. Eleven such leaders contested the elections independently, and 10 of them won. Meanwhile, the Congress party formed the government under the leadership of Ashok Gehlot, and these independent MLAs extended their support to Gehlot. The party realised that in Rajasthan, without the leadership of Ashok Gehlot and his mass support, the Congress could not survive. Gehlot is running a tight ship but the party infighting has only intensified because of the rivalry between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot.
Even before the rivalry between the two leaders played out in the open, the high command was well aware of a divided Congress house in Rajasthan but did not do anything to nip it in the bud. Instead, it ignored the early warning signs and allowed this tussle to grow.
No Sustainable Solution to Gehlot-Pilot Rivalry
During the mid-2020s, Pilot, who was then deputy chief minister of Rajasthan, took a delegation of lawmakers to Delhi. This sparked a feud between Gehlot and Pilot. Speculations were rife that this episode could unfold the way the feud in Madhya Pradesh Congress had some months ago, resulting in the resignation of Jyotiraditya Scindia. Significantly, Gehlot claimed that Pilot had conspired with the BJP to bring down the government in Rajasthan.
For months, there was speculation that to deal with this growing rivalry, the Congress leadership would call for a cabinet reshuffle. The reshuffle finally happened in late 2021, and around five Pilot loyalists got cabinet berths. Political analysts in Rajasthan believe this step should have been taken much earlier and in a more mature way. The delay in the process and the tension in its aftermath only widened the infighting in the state Congress unit.
Don’t Compare Rajasthan with Punjab
Similar party infighting in Punjab led to the resignation of then Congress chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, a few months before the crucial Punjab election. This created so much rift within the party that the Congress miserably lost the election this year. However, people who have been following the politics of Rajasthan believe the situation in the Rajasthan unit is different from Punjab. Therefore, expecting Gehlot to be removed or Pilot to be made the new chief minister is conjecture.
This is because Gehlot has grassroots support and majority of party MLAs and Independents support the veteran Congressman. Similarly, while Rahul Gandhi prefers Sachin Pilot, the support of Congress president Sonia Gandhi is with CM Gehlot.
Bureaucratisation of Power is Hurting Congress
According to ground reports, amid this turmoil in the party, the bureaucratic control of power has also reached its peak in Rajasthan. The state is not new to the “Kothari” culture, which makes certain top bureaucrats close to the chief ministers almost de facto CMs. For example, noted IAS officer Sunil Arora was believed to be the most powerful person in the BJP government under Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Similarly, when Vasundhara Raje was the CM of Rajasthan, it was believed that Tanmay Kumar used to run the show.
Similarly, this time, the general belief in the Congress party in Rajasthan is that the show is run by Kuldeep Ranka, the principal secretary of CM Ashok Gehlot. This bureaucratisation is not allowing MLAs and leaders of the Congress party to get their work done easily, and is hurting the party in the state.
Congress’ Response to a Streak of Communal Incidents
To add to the trouble, the state has witnessed several incidents of communal violence in the last few months in Alwar, Karauli and Jodhpur. The government has formed SITs to investigate these cases, but that is all. Chief minister Gehlot, who is an MLA from Jodhpur, has not visited his constituency after the communal tension. Such a stand will not get unnoticed by the electorate, including Muslims. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi in a recent visit to Jaipur trained his guns on the Gehlot government over violence in Karauli. The party also plans to contest the 2023 elections in the state — as seen in other states, Owaisi’s emergence is bad news for the Congress, which could lose its minority support.
Rajya Sabha Ticket Distribution Final Nail in Coffin?
While the high command has stayed silent on issues relating to Rajasthan, it has nominated Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari from Rajasthan — none of them are from Rajasthan. This clearly shows how little Rajasthan matters in the Congress high command’s scheme of things. The Rajya Sabha elections could have been used to douse the flames of infighting. Instead, the Congress leadership has once again shown it takes the state for granted. The impact of this decision could be felt in the Assembly election next year.
Chief minister Gehlot is a popular leader and his welfare schemes have struck a chord with the people of the state. But that alone cannot guarantee the Congress a win in the next election. It is time for the Congress central leadership to restore the faith of workers and leaders in the party by bringing a semblance of stability in the Rajasthan unit.
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The author is an independent journalist based in Kolkata and a former policy research fellow at the Delhi Assembly Research Center. He tweets @sayantan_gh. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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