JAIPUR: Chief minister Ashok
Gehlot is likely to go to New Delhi to attend the
Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting scheduled on October 16. The chief minister’s official programme is yet to be declared but Congressmen in
Rajasthan are already speculating the outcome of his visit on the state politics.
Since Gehlot would be visiting Delhi after a gap of seven months and at a time when his inhouse competitor
Sachin Pilot has been stepping up pressure for changes in the state government, the Congress central leadership is expected to use the opportunity to discuss Rajasthan’s political issues with the CM. Gehlot’s meeting with the Congress top brass that is long overdue was cancelled in the past owing to his ill health.
Pilot is in Delhi since Tuesday evening, but will return to Jaipur before October 16 as he is not the CWC member.
Last month, Gehlot’s cabinet colleague Harish Chaudhary, who is AICC observer in Punjab where too the Congress is battling internal strife, told the media in Jaipur that the day Gehlot’s plane lands in Delhi the party men can expect a cabinet rejig in Rajasthan. Pilot has been demanding cabinet expansion and reshuffle as well as state-level political appointments since August last year but, party sources said, now he is unlikely to settle for anything less than the CM’s post for himself.
“To make a credible difference in governance so that the Congress government gets repeated, Pilot would need to present at least two state budgets before the next assembly election in 2023,” said a PCC office-bearer closely following the Gehlot-Pilot tug of war for power.
Loyalists from the Gehlot camp are equally confident of a status quo at the top post in the state. “At the most, a cabinet rejig may take place after this meeting. This would be because two more cabinet vacancies may be created in the near future. But a change of CM is out of the question,” a minister, who did not wish to be quoted, said.
Early this month, Gehlot publicly declared that his government would complete the full five-year term and alluded that he would be CM for the 4th term after Congress retains power in the 2023 state elections.
The CWC, which is the party’s highest decision-making body, has been called to discuss the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, farmers’ issues as well as the 23 Congress senior leaders’ demand for an organisational overhaul. On the meeting sidelines, the Congress central leadership would want to engage with senior leaders from partyruled states like
Chhattisgarh
and Rajasthan facing demands of a leadership change at the local level.