India Today – October 08, 2018

38 INDIA TODAY OCTOBER 8, 2018

ince 2003, Rajasthan has witnessed a

straightcontestbetweentheCongressand

the BJP with Ashok Gehlot and Vasund-

hara Raje taking turns to run the state.

ThestoryoftheupcomingpollsinDecem-

ber seems no diferent, though there may

be a twist. The state BJP is grappling with

infighting and Raje’s own tussle with party president Amit

Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the Congress

front, there is a significant diference this time with Sachin

Pilot, as the Pradesh Congress Committee president,

throwing a challenge at both Raje and Gehlot.

Pilot is being seen as someone who has rejuvenated the

party and Congressmen alienated during Gehlot’s three

decades at the helm of the party in the state, thus raising

hopes of it making a crucial comeback after a disastrous

performance in the last assembly polls when it got 21 seats

in the 200-member assembly and the general elections

when it failed to win even one out of the 25 seats. Also,

Pilot’s strateg y of highlighting the Raje government’s fail-

ures in key areas seems to be more efective than Gehlot’s

preferred strategy of ‘personal’ attacks on the CM.

All this has apparently made Gehlot and his loyalists

nervous. And sensing groupism within the party, Congress

president Rahul Gandhi has asked Pilot to ensure that he

takes Gehlot along, at least publicly. As the Congress puts

up a united front, the talking point in the state is, who will

be the next CM—Gehlot or Pilot—implying that the party

may win this election.

For the BJP, Raje and Shah have been campaign-

ing separately. Though state BJP president Madan Lal

Saini describes this as a strategy and also optimum use of

resources, Pilot says it is infighting that has forced them

to do so. The friction with the top brass has been vis-

ible throughout Raje’s tenure. There’s a perception in the

state unit that the high command has forced her to be in

a ‘switch-of mode’, though she has undertaken extensive

tours twice, crisscrossing the entire state. Raje has done it

a third time now through her 40-day Suraj Gaurav Yatra.

Shah, on the other hand, is busy holding meetings at the

block level, receiving feedback from party workers, and

telling them that instead of sulking, they must go all-out

to ensure the BJP wins.

The first signs of an anti-Raje lobby within the party,

out to sabotage her by talking about her inecient rule,

was evident when the BJP lost three of the four bypolls

in September 2014 in the seats that fell vacant after four

MLAs moved to parliamentary seats. “People could not

have turned against the ruling party within a few weeks

for no reason,” says a senior BJP minister, adding that

Raje has to now face Pilot, the non-controversial new

face, as well as her opponents within the party.

ASSEMBLY POLLS |^ RAJASTHAN |

S

By Rohit Parihar

RAJE HAS A

BIG FIGHT ON

HER HANDS

WITH A YOUNG AND

UNTAINTED SACHIN PILOT

AT ITS HELM, THE CONGRESS

SEEMS TO BE PRESSING HOME

ITS ADVANTAGE

PURUSHOTTAM DIWAKAR