Gehlot Vs Pilot: Congress leader and former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot on Thursday spoke on the speculations on him quitting the Congress amid power tussle with party colleague and Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
“There is no need to speculate. Whatever is happening, is all before you. Whatever I say or do, I do it openly. I don’t play hide and seek. My demand is ideological, not personal. Nobody can accuse me of being ambitious for a post. Everyone knows of my politics..,” said Pilot when asked about speculations on him quitting Congress.
Gehlot’s latest salvo on Pilot
Pilot’s clarification comes hours after Gehlot made a veiled attack against him saying those who create factions (“Thari-Mhari/ teri-meri karte hai”) can never become successful and never be loyal to the party.
“Someone who speaks about ‘apna-paraya’ and creates factions can never be successful in life. There is a saying- draw a bigger line instead of erasing others’ lines. That is what I have always done,” CM Gehlot added.
The statement came on a day Pilot launched a 125-km-long “Jan Sangharsh Yatra” from Ajmer to Jaipur to raise the issue of corruption and the leaking of question papers for state government recruitment exams.
Pilot-Gehlot tussle:
Gehlot and Pilot have been at loggerheads over the chief minister’s post ever since the Congress formed the government in Rajasthan in December 2018. Their simmering tussle for power came out in public in July 2020, when Pilot led a failed rebellion in the party for a change in leadership in the state.
The feud resurfaced in recent weeks after Pilot sat on a symbolic day-long dharna against the Gehlot government to press it to act in cases of alleged corruption during the previous Vasundhara Raje Scindia dispensation.
“In a democracy, those who take everyone along become successful and those who create factions can never become successful,” Gehlot said after inaugurating a statue of former Congress leader Pandit Nawal Kishore Sharma in Jaipur. “I have always tried in my life to take everyone along,” he added.
Gehlot asserted that he has worked his entire life to uphold the party’s principles and policies with allegiance, honesty, and commitment. He said he has worked to lengthen the line instead of shortening it.
“Those indulging in factionalism (Thari-Mhari karte hai) can never become successful. They are never loyal to the party. Loyalty is very important,” he said.
Sachin Pilot ‘Jan Sangharsh Yatra’:
Dissident Congress leader Sachin Pilot began a 125-km foot march from Ajmer to Jaipur on Thursday (May 11), challenging Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the party’s top brass as assembly elections in Rajasthan approach. A month back, the former deputy chief minister had defied a warning from the party to hold a daylong fast targeting Gehlot on “inaction” over alleged corruption when the BJP was previously in power.
(With agencies inputs)
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