The crisis within the Ashok Gehlot Government and the ruling Congress is getting murkier. With Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot seemingly not to ready to give in to his political bête noire and former deputy Sachin Pilot’s demands, sources said party chief Sonia Gandhi rushed senior Congress leader and Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja to hold another and perhaps the last round of meeting with Gehlot.
Selja reached Jaipur on Sunday night and returned Delhi on Monday after a long meeting with Gehlot. Selja was sent after AICC General Secretaries K C Venugopal, Ajay Maken, Randeep Surjewala conducted a series of meeting with party members, legislators, rebels and the Chief Minister during the last one month.
AICC sources said that Selja returned with Gehlot’s query for the central party leadership whether the party will keep repeating Punjab if there are differences within. “Should we repeat Punjab in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and then set a trend as this is the last resort to run a party and government,” Gehlot is understood to have conveyed and asked, according to the sources.
The sudden trip has added to the speculation over the expected reshuffle, amid demands by Pilot that he and his loyalists should get a bigger share. Selja enjoys the confidence of Congress president and is also considered close to Gehlot.
She was the chairperson of the screening committee formed to decide the Congress candidates in the last assembly elections in Rajasthan.
Selja’s meeting with Gehlot comes just a day after Maken returned and briefed the high command about his three days of meeting with MLAs and CM last week. In a clear indication that some members of the Gehlot Cabinet may be dropped, Maken had told the media that a few ministers have expressed willingness to quit the state government to work for the organisation.
The Gehlot government, which came to power in December 2018, has completed half of its tenure. The demand for a cabinet reshuffle and political appointments to other posts gained momentum in June after some MLAs close to Pilot expressed resentment, saying promises made by the party high command to him last year had not be fulfilled but similar issues were met in Punjab within a few weeks of trouble there.
As of now there are 21 cabinet members including the CM in Rajasthan and after a reshuffle nine will be added taking the tally to 30 members in the Gehlot government. A three-member AICC committee too had been formed to look into the grievances of Pilot and his MLAs and both the time the central leadership took the step to pacify Pilot.