The Congress on Tuesday sacked Sachin Pilot as Rajasthan deputy chief minister and the party’s state unit chief, two days after his open rebellion against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
In swift action after Pilot turned down public appeals to come back to the party fold, the Congress also removed the 42-year-old leader’s loyalists Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena from the state Cabinet and axed those close to him from key party posts.
The decision was announced after the meeting of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP), the second in as many days, to give an opportunity to Pilot and his supporters to come back. As Pilot dug in his heels and stayed ensconced in a resort in Gurugram, the party took the extreme step and expressed complete faith in the leadership of Gehlot.
The Congress said several leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, P Chidambaram and K C Venugopal, had reached out to Pilot but to no avail. “I am sad that Sachin Pilot has fallen for a trap laid by the BJP,” Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said.
Soon after the decision was announced, Pilot took to Twitter to say that “truth can be harassed but not defeated”. Pilot was yet to announce his next move though earlier he had ruled out joining the BJP.
The swift action by Congress came after Gehlot had the numbers by his side — 109 in the Assembly of 200 — while Pilot was left with barely 16 MLAs, nearly half of the 30 legislators he had claimed to be with him. Gehlot mocked Pilot’s attempt at rebellion saying he should have been aware that it requires the support of two-thirds of MLAs to break a party and not 20 MLAs.
“There is nothing in Sachin Pilot’s hands, he is a mere pawn in the hands of the BJP. The resort where Pilot and his supporters are staying is owned by the BJP... the same people of the BJP who supervised toppling of governments from other states are now in action managing the situation here,” Gehlot told reporters outside the Raj Bhawan.
Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, BJP leader from Rajasthan, said anyone with a mass base wanting to join the party was welcome.