The Sachin Pilot-led Congress group in Rajasthan is dissatisfied with the party’s top leadership over the continuing delay in expanding the state government.
According to Congress sources, the Pilot-camp leaders have been chastised by the party’s high headquarters for failing to persuade Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to expand his cabinet.
Several followers of Sachin Pilot, who were sidelined following the public brawl between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot last year, are still on the sidelines.
Pilot supporters are also angry, according to insiders, with the verbal volleys hurled at their leader from the Ashok Gehlot camp.
The Pilot camp had believed that the cabinet expansion would take place in July after Congress national secretary Ajay Maken’s visit to Jaipur.
However, after the verbal attacks by an independent MLA close to Ashok Gehlot, Pilot camp leaders anticipate that cabinet enlargement in Rajasthan would be delayed.
Babulal Nagar, an independent MLA close to CM Ashok Gehlot, had launched a frontal assault on Sachin Pilot, wondering why the Congress received fewer seats in the 2018 assembly elections when it was projected to gain 150. At the time of the elections, Sachin Pilot was the state Congress chairman.
Pilot supporter and Congress MLA Ved Prakash Solanki responded in Nagar, saying that if the independent accusations were genuine, why were photographs of Sachin Pilot displayed during Congress rallies during the election?
Solanki joked that it was because Pilot is famous among Rajasthanis.
Several independent MLAs allied to Ashok Gehlot had previously chastised Sachin Pilot, saying that they stuck with the Congress to save the party’s administration in Rajasthan when some of its leaders abandoned the party and fled the state.
Last year, Sachin Pilot and 18 other Rajasthan Congress MLAs rebelled against CM Ashok Gehlot’s leadership and fled the state. They’d returned after the Gandhi family seemed to mediate a cease-fire between the warring groups.
