In an effort to find a middle ground between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is scheduled to hold meetings with the two warring leaders on Monday in Delhi. As per a senior party leader familiar with the development, the Congress chief will hold separate meetings with the duo.
Confirming the news, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “They (Gehlot and Pilot) are coming. We will discuss and decide whatever is in the interest of the party.”
Meanwhile, the chief minister’s office has also released Gehlot’s programme confirming his visit to Delhi, where he will also lay the foundation stone of the Rajasthan House.
Gehlot’s Big Claim
Before meeting Kharge, Gehlot on Monday said the party’s high command is strong and it will never offer any position to any leader or worker to pacify him.
“As far as I know, there is no such tradition in the Congress where any leader demands something and the party high command offers to give that position. We have not heard of such a formula ever,” he said when asked about reports of a formula being worked out to rope in Pilot.
Rubbishing such reports, he said, it is only the creation of the media and some leaders may be getting such stories planted.
“The Congress party is strong and there is such position that the high command offers to give any post to any leader to pacify any leader,” he said
Pilot’s ‘Ultimatum’
Kharge’s proposed meetings come close on the heels of Pilot’s “ultimatum” that if three demands he made from the Gehlot government were not met by the end of this month, he would launch a state-wide agitation.
Rajasthan’s former Deputy CM has asked for a high-level inquiry into the alleged scams that took place during the tenure of the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje government, as one of his demands.
Infighting In Rajasthan Congress
In an effort to broker a truce between Gehlot and Pilot, Congress has also roped in senior leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath.
Pilot and Gehlot have been engaged in a power tussle since the Congress formed government in the state in 2018. In 2020, Pilot led a failed revolt against the Gehlot government after which he was removed from the posts of party state unit president and deputy chief minister.
The former Rajasthan deputy chief minister had last month defied a warning from the party and went ahead with a day-long fast targeting Gehlot over his “inaction” on alleged corruption during the Raje government.
According to the senior leader, a meeting of the Congress top brass with all the state leaders was scheduled on May 26 but was later postponed. He said that now the high command will meet Gehlot and Pilot separately to bring them on one platform ahead of the assembly elections, which are due later this year.
Kharge was successful in bringing Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar together in Karnataka and the party now wants to try the same formula in Rajasthan, the senior leader said.
He also said that a few days ago a meeting of the Congress high command with the leaders of all poll-bound states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana, was planned, which was postponed.
(With PTI inputs)
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