Rajasthan: Sachin Pilot sacked as Deputy Chief Minister, state Congress chief; 2 other ministers dropped

Moments after veteran leader Sachin Pilot skipped the second Congress Legislative Party (CLP) on Tuesday at the Fairmount hotel in Jaipur, the grand old party sacked him and two other ministers from the Rajasthan Cabinet. According to the latest updates, Pilot has been removed from the post of the Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan and as well as the state Congress chief.

As the second CLP meeting was underway today, it was reported that 102 MLAs present there at the Jaipur hotel had unanimously demanded that Sachin Pilot be removed from the party.

After the meeting, the Congress, in a statement, said that Pilot was "ensnared" by the BJP to bring down the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan. Two other ministers, Vishvender Singh and Ramesh Meena, who had joined Pilot in rebelling against the current regime in the state have also been dropped.

Govind Singh Dotasra has been appointed as the new Rajasthan Congress chief.

Senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Ahmed Patel, P Chidambaram, and KC Venugopal had spoken to Sachin Pilot several times, but Pilot still did not attend the Congress Legislature Party meeting today, reported news agencies.

Rajasthan is witnessing a magnifying political crisis after Pilot had rebelled against the Ashok Gehlot-led government over 'being sidelined'. Currently, the Congress government in the state is staring at a crisis as Pilot has a few loyalist MLAs on his side.

On late Monday night, the camp belonging to Pilot had released a video of around 15 loyalist MLAs sitting together at a hotel in Haryana's Manesar. Although Sachin Pilot is not seen in the video, some of the legislators in the clip have their faces turned towards the camera. Congress MLAs such as Inder Raj Gurjar, PR Meena, GR Khatana, and Harish Meena can be seen in the video. The 10-second video clip presumably sends a direct and strong message to the Congress leadership that Sachin Pilot is not in a mood to relent and that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will have to face some harsh days ahead in order to safeguard his government.

In the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting held earlier on Monday morning at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence, around 12 Congress MLAs were missing. After the meeting, Congress estimated that Gehlot's government has the support of 106 MLAs.

Following that, the grand old party moved its MLAs to a resort to keep out of the reach of the BJP, claiming that the saffron camp is trying to bribe legislators in order to 'destabilize' the Gehlot-led government in the state.

So far, the Gehlot government had the support of 123 MLAs, including 107 Congress MLAs, 2 MLAs of Bharatiya Tribal Party, one RLD MLA, and 13 Independents, but of these 123 MLAs, he is now left with only 101 MLAs. Out of the 22 rebel MLAs, Sachin Pilot has claimed the support of 19 Congress MLAs and 3 Independents.

In Rajasthan's total 200 assembly seats, 101 MLAs are needed to save the government, but two MLAs of the Indian Tribal Party have also pulled out of the Gehlot government, which currently has the support of merely 99 legislators. But what is more worrying for Ashok Gehlot is that among the remaining 99 MLAs, several are claimed to be of Sachin Pilot's camp.