Understanding the crisis of the Congress in Rajasthan: how it arose, and where it is headed-Viral punch

 

   

    Rajsathan government crisis: The old tussle between CM Ashok Gehlot and Deputy CM Sachin Pilot has now been made part of an FIR in Rajasthan. While Gehlot's government is on far stronger ground than Kamal Nath's in MP, the damage to the party, and to the relations between its two top leaders in Rajasthan, will be grave Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot at Albert Hall in Jaipur. Express Photo by Rohit Jain Paras

On Saturday (July 11), Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot claimed that the BJP was trying to topple his government

and the state police arrested two members of the BJP for allegedly attempting to buy Congress and Independent lawmakers with offers of money. In the FIR, police mentioned that phonetaps had shown that the “Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister (Sachin Pilot) are having a fight”, and the “Deputy CM says that he will be the CM”

The latest flashpoint in the tussle between Gehlot and Pilot has alarmed the Congress leadership and some Congress leaders have begun to recall the manner in which the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia 

had led to the collapse of the government of Chief Minister Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh, and the return of the BJP to power.

So if Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot wants to do a Jyotiraditya Scindia in his state — that is, if he plans to leave the Congress and topple the Ashok Gehlot government, how do the numbers and politics stack up?

Unlike in Madhya Pradesh, the difference between the combined strength of the Congress and that of the BJP opposition is not razor-thin in Rajasthan. The numbers were tested just a month ago — when the Rajya Sabha elections took place. The two Congress candidates had then polled 123 out of the 200 votes.

The Congress has 107 MLAs, and has the support of all 13 Independent MLAs, 2 MLAs of the Bharatiya Tribal Party, and one of RLD. It also banks on the support of the two CPM MLAs in a crunch situation, which takes the tally to 125.

It got two fewer votes (123) in the Rajya Sabha elections because a Minister and one of the CPM MLAs could not vote on account of their health.

The BJP, on the other hand, got 74 votes in the Rajya Sabha elections. It has 72 MLAs on its own, and has the support of the three MLAs of the Hanuman Beniwal-led Rashtriya Loktantrik Party. One vote was disqualified.

Unlike in Madhya Pradesh, most of the Independents are close to Chief Minister Gehlot. Many of them were Congress rebels. And despite Sachin Pilot being the Pradesh Congress Committee president since 2014, Gehlot had an upper hand in the distribution of tickets for the Assembly elections in 2018, and nearly 75 per cent of the Congress MLAs are said to be loyal to him.

The Pilot camp, on the other hand, claims he has the support of at least 50 per cent of the MLAs.

And the BJP in Rajasthan is a divided house, isn’t it?

That is perhaps the key difference between Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The post of Chief Minister is at the heart of the tussle between Pilot and Gehlot. The question is, if Pilot were to leave the Congress and embrace the BJP, will he settle for anything less than Chief Ministership, when he is already the Deputy Chief Minister?

Scindia, on the other hand, was not asking for Chief Ministership, which made things easy for the BJP as the rebellion in the Congress paved the way for the return of 

Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister.

But can’t Pilot break the Congress and walk out along with the MLAs loyal to him?

To escape the anti-defection law, two-thirds of Congress MLAs will have to leave the party. That is a very big number — 72 out of the Congress’s 107 MLAs.

The other option is the ‘Madhya Pradesh model’ — which means MLAs loyal to Pilot will have to resign so that the strength of the House comes down. They will then have to join the BJP, and contest by-elections on BJP tickets to fill the vacancies in the House.

But since the difference between the combined strength of the Congress (125) and the BJP (75) is quite big (50), a large number of MLAs will have to resign to bring down the halfway mark.