Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s no-holds-barred attack against his former deputy, Sachin Pilot, isn’t just the outburst of a leader whose government has been facing a crisis because of the rebellion by Mr. Pilot and his supporters.
It is also a reflection of the reducing clout of the party’s top leadership at a time when the Congress is witnessing a churn with regard to its leadership.
While Mr. Gehlot called Mr. Pilot ‘nikamma’ [worthless], the same ‘worthless’ leader was being wooed by party’s top leaders such as Ahmed Patel, P. Chidambaram, K.C. Venugopal and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
“Such intemperate language shows the humiliation Mr. Pilot faced in the past one and half years. It only makes his case stronger,” a source close to the rebel Congress leader told The Hindu.
In fact, the Rajasthan crisis, and before that Jyotiraditya Scindia’s departure, has also challenged the notion that only the Gandhi family can hold together the Congress when ambitious leaders try to pull it in different directions.