Jaipur: Two Congress has emerged victorious in both the assembly constituencies that had by-polls in Rajasthan. The party’s candidate Priti Shaktawat won the Vallabhnagar seat and Nagraj Meena emerged victorious in the Dhariawad seat. What stands apart from the Congress win is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates stood fourth in Vallabhnagar and third in Dhariawad.
The BJP had won the Dhariawad constituency in the 2018 Vidhan Sabha elections, and the Vallabhnagar seat was in the Congress’s kitty. This means that the Congress has managed to add one seat to its tally in the state assembly, which now stands at 108. The number of BJP MLAs in the 200-member assembly now stands at 71.
While the results don’t matter much in terms of the addition in the number of Congress legislators – the party already is much ahead of the majority mark of 100 – they are significant for Rajasthan’s politics. These victories offer a breather to chief minister Ashok Gehlot, who has been under pressure for a long time to expand his cabinet of ministers and make political appointments.
According to senior journalist Mukesh Sharma, the Congress high command will not be in a position to exert pressure on Gehlot anymore. “The anti-Gehlot camp within the party had been trying to convince the high command that the workers’ grievances are not being redressed, which is leading to an anti-Congress wave in the state. But the results of the by-elections have negated this completely,” he added.
Sharma said: “Now Gehlot will have a free hand in the cabinet expansion and political appointments. It will be his decision to expand his cabinet as and when he wants, and to include legislators of his own choice. The anti-Gehlot camp will surely be demoralised with these results for the simple reason that the high command will now obviously give more importance to Gehlot.”
In Rajasthan, the cabinet can have 30 ministers (15% of 200 seats). Currently this number stands at 21, including the chief minister. This means there’s room for nine more ministers. If the ‘one-person-one-post’ formula is implemented and people holding organisational posts are removed from the cabinet, it will create three more positions. Education minister Govind Singh Dotasra is the Pradesh Congress Committee president; health minister Raghu Sharma has been made the All India Congress Committee secretary in charge of Gujarat and revenue minister Harish Choudhary is AICC secretary in charge of Punjab.
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A senior legislator of the Gehlot camp said the chief minister was more in favour of an expansion rather than a reshuffle. “A reshuffle would mean some of the cabinet colleagues being moved out, and that would send out a wrong political message that the government’s performance was not satisfactory – at least in the ministries handled by those who get the sack. This would be untrue because the by-election results have proved that the government continues to enjoy the people’s support,” he added, requesting anonymity.
The legislator further said that the CM would at best fill the vacancies in the cabinet. “The CM is unlikely to act under any kind of duress. It is obvious that party MLAs who stood solidly behind the CM during the political crisis of July 2020 caused by a revolt at the behest of the BJP will be rewarded. They will be rewarded for saving the government. Some of them may get political appointments too,” he said.
If this happens, it will be a rude shock to the attempts of Sachin Pilot. The former deputy chief minister has been lobbying for a cabinet berth for three-four of his loyal legislators to send a message that the high command sees him as an important part of the state’s politics and will not push him to the sidelines – despite his revolt.
Sachin Pilot. Photo: PTI
If the cabinet expansion and the political appointments don’t happen according to the wishes of Pilot, it may become difficult for him to retain the support of some of the legislators. Some of the MLAs who sided with Pilot in July 2020 have already switched sides and are now openly standing in support of Gehlot. Among those who haven’t switched sides, some are maintaining a stoic silence.
This is the third time that when speculation in political circles suggested that Gehlot would be sidelined, the tables turned in his favour suddenly. In the first instance, during the July 2020 revolt by 18 Congress MLAs, the CM managed to save his seat and the government. The second round of speculations erupted when Navjyot Singh Sidhu was made the PCC chief in Punjab and Amarinder Singh was edged out to make Charanjeet Singh Channi the chief minister. Gehlot’s detractors began talking about a similar change in Rajasthan but that did not occur.
In the third instance, there was pressure on Gehlot from the high command to expand the cabinet and make political appointments. AICC general secretary in charge of Rajasthan Ajay Maken has repeatedly said that both these exercises would be done soon but in the middle of all these talks came the results of the two by-elections, and the pressure is suddenly off Gehlot’s shoulders again.
Political commentator Tarun Dutt feels that apart from being an astute politician, Gehlot is also a lucky man. “Whenever the going gets tough for him – or appears to be tough – he makes one deft move or something happens on its own and luck begins to smile on him,” he added.
It’s a coincidence that Gehlot belongs to a family of magicians – his father Laxman Singh earned his living by playing magic tricks in the streets of Jodhpur in western Rajasthan. The magic, it appears, has not stopped playing in Gehlot’s life.
Even in the by-election, luck played its part. In both the seats, the Congress was pitted against a BJP that saw infighting. In both seats, the BJP fielded candidates who were looking weak from the beginning.
In Vallabhnagar, Udayalal Dangi, who was at number two and Randhir Singh Bhinder, who was at number three, were seeking tickets from the BJP but the party fielded Himmat Singh Jhala instead.
Dangi contested the election on the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party’s ticket. Randhir Singh Bhinder contested as an independent. Dangi got 45,107 votes and Bhinder got 43,817 votes while BJP’s Himmat Singh Jhala only got 21,433 votes. If the BJP had made Dangi or Bhinder candidates, the equations could have been different.
Gautam Lal Meena of the BJP had won the 2018 assembly elections from Dhariwad. This seat fell vacant only because of his death. His son Kanhaiya Lal Meena was the strong contender in the by-election, but the party fielded Khet Singh Meena instead. On the other hand, independent candidate Thawarchand, who finished second, cut the BJP’s, giving the advantage to the Congress.