By Sushil Kutty
Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, two states ruled by the Congress are scheduled to go polls before the year is out. Also, both with a leadership problem at the state level! Those were the similarities till a couple of days ago when the Congress high command, after years of ignoring the infighting in Chhattisgarh, sat down with the warring duo and hammered out a truce that hopefully will last till after the assembly elections are held and the Congress trumps.
More importantly, there’s newfound hope that a similar kind of truce could be worked out in Rajasthan where the never-ending Gehlot-Pilot incendiary tussle for leadership of the government could do damage to Congress’s chances to retain Rajasthan for another five-year term.
But, for all the high hopes stemming from the truce between Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and TS Singhdeo, who has been made Deputy Chief Minister to assuage his ego, the situation in Rajasthan isn’t as easy. Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot have too much bad blood between them to put an end to the blood-letting.
Let’s not forget that the Congress high command could have solved the Rajasthan crisis years ago. It was just a matter of letting go of Sachin Pilot, who seems as if he has a direct telepathic line to his late father Rajesh Pilot and wouldn’t let go unless he was handed a pink slip signed by all three members of the Gandhi family, Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi.
The silver-haired Singhdeo in Chhattisgarh understood there was an assembly election to win, but the much younger Sachin Pilot looks at the approaching assembly election as a bargaining chip to keep upping the ante. So far, it hasn’t worked to change the status quo and the Ashok Gehlot-Sachin Pilot standoff continues unabated.
But Chhattisgarh signals that time is running out for the Congress high command and for Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. T S Singhdeo was a claimant for the CM’s post in 2018 when Bhupesh Baghel was chosen. On June 28, Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and AICC state in-charge Kumari Selja sat down with Baghel and Singhdeo and sorted things out to everybody’s satisfaction.
Singhdeo understood this was not time to insist on his pound of flesh. Elections are approaching and there is a need to do some “balancing”. So, the 70-year-old settled to accept a formula that will be face-saving for the Congress high command. The party could do with a “good message” to go around. Whether the good message will cross borders and leave a mark in Rajasthan was another thing, though.
Both Singhdeo and Bhagel knew when to bury the hatchet. Gehlot and Pilot wouldn’t if the skies were to fall, thunder to roar, and lightning to strike. There is no backing in either of them. If one is a magician, the other fancies himself most-valued-politician. And an indecisive high command has been tolerating the infighting even as the Bharatiya Janata Party stood looking for Rajasthan Congress to fall apart.
Now, the high command is hoping Chhattisgarh will send a “good message”. The Congress fought the 2018 Chhattisgarh elections under “collective leadership” with Baghel the PCC president and Singhdeo the CLP leader. The agreement was that TS Singhdeo would become Chief Minister after two and a half years of Bhagel as Chief Minister.
But as happens, the “rotational chief minister” agreement went out the window. Now, Singhdeo has agreed to a truce. Maybe truce is not the same as agreement! The Congress high command owes to TS Singhdeo, but the Congress high command is known for missing the woods for the tree.
Perhaps, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot know this high command trait. Baghel and Singhdeo, on the other hand, are like Charles Dickens’ “Barkis is willing”, Gehlot and Pilot don’t seem to know the meaning of the word “willing”. KC Venugopal was all praise for Singhdeo after the “truce”, saying “he is a loyal Congress leader”. Will he say the same about Sachin Pilot?
At least the Congress high command is happy that the Congress situation in Chhattisgarh has been resolved and the party is confident of winning the assembly elections this time, too. TS Singhdeo will be looking forward to that moment in history. As for Rajasthan, let’s not forget Rahul Gandhi’s father was also a pilot! Maybe, the two pilots’ sons will work out a Rajasthani truce if Ashok Gehlot does not pull out a rabbit out of his magician’s hat before that. (IPA Service)
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