Sachin Pilot, the former deputy chief minister, said the Congress won the state of Rajasthan in 2018 under his leadership. He thanked the hard work of the party’s workers while stressing the importance of working together to retain power when the state is set for the polls next year.
“Our goal is to retain power in the 2023 assembly polls, and we are all collectively working in this direction,” he told journalists in Kota on Monday.
Pilot, who later arrived in former chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s constituency of Jhalawar, said they won the last election because of the farmers, youths, and poor. “It is our collective responsibility to fulfil the expectations of workers and the public.”
The remarks highlighting the necessity of teamwork came days after the Congress was rocked by members loyal to Ashok Gehlot’s threat to topple the government unless he gets to choose his successor.
Numerous Congress members who were thought to be close to Gehlot gathered at minister Shanti Dhariwal’s house in a show of strength and threatened to resign. They claimed that the 102 legislators who backed Gehlot when his former deputy Pilot rebelled against him in 2020 should produce the new chief minister. It is generally accepted that Pilot had a guarantee from the Congress’s high leadership that he would be the successor of Gehlot.
The Congress Legislative Party gathering was likely to accept a one-line resolution that would have given the party president the power to choose the new chief minister, but the legislators were against it.
Gehlot decided not to participate in the election for the presidency of the Congress on October 17 due to the uproar. According to the one-man, one-post norm of the Congress, he was expected to step down from his position as chief minister and run in the election.
Congress leaders familiar with the matter said Pilot has begun touring the state as part of the poll preparations. They added that his visits to Kota, Jhalawar, and Jhalrapatan were seen as an attempt to boost the morale of his supporters.
Raje separately hit out at the state government and said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will return to power by winning over 163 of the 200 assembly seats. She added that the state was lagging behind in development and that Congress leaders were preoccupied with becoming chief minister.
The BJP got 120 seats in 2003 and 163 seats in 2013. If we unitedly work, then we will cross 163 seats,” she told a gathering at Bikaner. She said there is a lot of resentment against the government. “Do not get divided into castes. A historical win is certain if we fight unitedly.” She said the Gehlot government has failed on all fronts. “Under his leadership, the state is number one in atrocities against women, corruption, inflation, diesel, petrol prices, expensive electricity, and paper leaks.”