Rajasthan Assembly polls: Tickets of rebels who questioned Congress high command put on the block

According to party insiders, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had reservations over the candidatures of three senior state leaders, minister Shanti Dhariwal, chief whip Mahesh Joshi and state tourism corporation chairman Dharmendra Rathore. -- Reports ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi:The Congress high command’s plans to assert itself as it has put nominations of three loyalists of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on the block as the party is doing candidate selection with a fine comb.

Polling for the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly will be held on November 25. Results will be out on December 3. According to party insiders, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had reservations over the candidatures of three senior state leaders, minister Shanti Dhariwal, chief whip Mahesh Joshi and state tourism corporation chairman Dharmendra Rathore.

Rahul had questioned why the state unit had sent single names on around 100 seats instead of the usual three-member panel which allows the Central Election Committee (CEC) to pick the most suitable nominee. "During the Central Election Committee meeting held on Wednesday, the Gandhis had expressed reservations over some names including these three. Their tickets are on the block now," a senior AICC functionary said on condition of anonymity.

Congress leaders recalled that three state leaders, Dhariwal, Joshi and Rathore, had led a rebellion of party MLAs on September 25, 2022 when the then party chief Sonia Gandhi had deployed senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken to Jaipur as AICC observers to bring about a change of leadership in the Rajasthan.

As per Sonia’s plan, she wanted Ashok Gehlot to become the Congress president and Sachin Pilot the new chief minister. Later, Gehlot had apologised to Sonia over the defiance of the MLAs and withdrawn from the presidential race. Both Kharge and Maken had submitted a report to Sonia in which the three state leaders were blamed for leading the rebellion but no clean chit was given to Gehlot either.

In particular, Dhariwal had made the controversial remark “Who is high command” which had soured the mood of the AICC observers. Since then, Pilot had been upping the ante against Gehlot demanding that the AICC disciplinary committee, which had given notices to the three state leaders, take action against them. He had even urged new party chief Kharge to take note of the matter but the issue was put on the backburner for some reasons.

Over the past few days, hectic parleys have been held in Delhi between senior state leaders and AICC functionaries to evolve consensus over the names suggested by the camps of both Gehlot and Pilot. While Pilot had been targeting the MLAs loyal to Gehlot citing negative feedback about some lawmakers in the AICC surveys, the chief minister had been defending his supporters saying they stayed with the Congress at a time when the BJP tried to topple his government in 2020 by offering Rs 10 crore per MLA to the group led by Pilot, who had camped at a resort in Manesar.

The Gehlot camp argues that while the BJP could topple elected governments in Manipur, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, he was able to save the Congress government in Rajasthan with the help of his loyalists. Gehlot and Pilot reportedly had a heated argument over ticket distribution during the screening committee meeting on Tuesday. “The high command will now assert itself. The infighting between the two camps has dented the party. This cannot always be allowed,” said the senior AICC functionary.