Amid speculation may be made the chief of the party’s Rajasthan unit, former chief minister and fellow Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Sunday made references to the Pilot-led rebellion in the party in 2020, and suggested that he “admit” his mistakes and “accept the truth”.
Terming the September 2022 boycott of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting a conspiracy to defame him, Gehlot said that the move wasn’t against the party high command but against by party MLAs opposed to Pilot.
Talking to journalists in Jaipur, Gehlot said, “…I want to tell Pilot sahab that he should accept the truth. Humans make mistakes, and I can make them too. If he made a mistake, he should admit it. As soon as I left the hotel in Jaisalmer (in 2020), when it was decided they (the Pilot-led rebels) were returning, I spoke to you (journalists) and said, ‘Forget and forgive.’ If Sachin Pilot had understood my feelings that day, he too would have forgotten and forgiven. I didn’t say that it wasn’t my fault and that it was his. I said, ‘Forget and forgive,’ meaning forget and forgive the mistakes we made between us. Now, if he didn’t understand that, what’s my fault?”
In 2020, the leak of audio tapes allegedly involving a BJP leader, a middleman and some Congress MLAs had led to a political crisis in Rajasthan, with then Deputy CM Sachin Pilot unsuccessfully leading a rebellion of 19 Congress MLAs against Chief Minister Gehlot’s government while staying in Manesar, in BJP-ruled Haryana.
Gehlot said on Sunday, “We still meet, we joke, and we talk. We have no problem with each other. He hasn’t learned to accept the truth, and that’s why this issue still persists. I said that in Bikaner six months ago, ‘Forget this now, forget Manesar.’ Did any such statement come (from him) after I said I forgot Manesar?”
He also criticised Pilot’s advisers for letting the issue persist, “We don’t want the issue to continue, what’s done is done. Humans make mistakes, but unless someone admits their mistakes, the issue persists. I don’t want it to continue.”
In 2020, following his rebellion, Pilot was removed as Deputy CM and as party state president, with Govind Singh Dotasra appointed as the Rajasthan PCC chief — a position he holds till date. Of late, there has been speculation that the party may reappoint Pilot as PCC chief as it gears up for the 2028 Assembly election.
Raking up another controversy from 2022, Gehlot said, “The September 25th (2022) incident was against the very person whose name had become publicised as someone who could be sworn in as Chief Minister: Pilot sahab.” Gehlot alleged that Pilot and his friends spread the news that “a new CM (Pilot) is going to be appointed as is going to become the party’s national president”.
Ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls, the party had called a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting in Jaipur in September 2022, apparently to anoint Pilot as CM, but the Gehlot camp allegedly engineered a boycott through 81 MLAs.
He said that Pilot as CM was not acceptable to as many as 100 MLAs because they were the ones who had “shown loyalty to the party high command” in 2020, when Pilot had rebelled against the Congress government.
“(The MLAs said) ‘we stayed confined in hotels, showed loyalty to the high command, stood by them, and saved the government. Give the post of Chief Minister to any one of us, any one of the 100 of us. We are okay with that, but Pilot is not acceptable to us, and we will not agree because he was among those who took them (rebels) to Manesar’. This was their demand. This is being distorted, and it is being claimed that there was a revolt against the high command. Had there been a revolt against the high command, would I have remained CM later? If we had revolted, why would the high command have kept me as the CM? The one making the accusations should understand this,” Gehlot said.
He also said that usually, whenever a CM is being replaced within the party, “90 per cent of the MLAs” flock to the incoming CM, but this was not the case in Rajasthan.
The former CM also said he has had an affection for Pilot since the latter’s childhood. “…now he has been in politics for about 15-20 years, he has been an MP, he has gained experience, none of us are his enemies, we have affection for him since childhood, we used to visit his family since childhood. He was a 2-3-year-old child then; I still consider him like a child. But I don’t know who is guiding him in politics,” Gehlot said.
Gehlot also said that he could not have declined the post of Congress president in 2022, which has been held by “Gandhi ji, Pandit Nehru, Motilal Nehru, Sardar Patel…” claiming that it was a conspiracy to defame him where AICC observers – Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken then – arrived “suddenly” and “there was a tamasha, and I got defamed.”
On speculation that Pilot may be given a major party responsibility in the state, Gehlot said this was the creation of the media, which he said sometimes claims that Pilot is the “Prime Ministerial candidate, sometimes they say that he is the Congress presidential candidate, or the working president of Congress, the general secretary of organisation (in Congress), or the PCC chief…”
“Why are you hounding Pilot sahab? All the media people in are hounding him, whether it’s mainstream media or your social media,” the veteran leader said.
He also claimed that he helped Pilot become a Union minister and expressed disappointment that Pilot never mentioned this in public. “They made him a Union minister, and I helped him become a Union Minister, but he never said this out loud, and I have a complaint about that. He knows I helped him. When he called, I told him I’ve spoken for him and that he’ll become a minister. He didn’t say this out loud, and it is saddening.”
“If he had even told his friends that ‘Ashok Gehlot helped me’, it would have filled my heart. Why didn’t he say it? When he’s calling me, requesting me to help him become a minister, and I helped him, wasn’t it his duty to say something?” Gehlot said, indicating that it was this behaviour that eventually led to issues between them.
With the -led BJP government completing nearly half its tenure, Gehlot said, “Today I have everything, and I am an extremely satisfied politician in this country. I am no longer after power. If a position is forced upon me, that’s a different matter. I am not in pursuit of a position.”
He, however, asked his opponents not to “erase” his line, but to draw a bigger one, “Three terms as Chief Minister is not a small thing. Our leaders are unable to understand my feelings. I said, ‘draw a line bigger than mine’. Don’t erase my line, draw a line bigger than mine. No one knows who will become chief minister. We want everyone to keep moving forward together.”
Pilot has not responded to Gehlot’s comments on Sunday.
