JAIPUR: Chief minister
Ashok Gehlot and his deputy
Sachin Pilot have shared uneasy relations for long. Sachin used to say that when he assumed charge as the party chief after the party's worst debacle in 2013
assembly polls
, the morale of party workers was at its lowest. He started reviving the party by taking up the issues of people.
Sachin often claimed that he and
Congress workers
built the party up again by taking to the streets against anti-people policies of the BJP government and getting beaten up by the police. He is now the longest serving PCC president. On completion of his six years as PCC president earlier this year, Sachin had claimed that there was no block left in the state that he had not visited to boost the morale of party workers.
Differences between Gehlot and Pilot cropped up during the
ticket distribution
to the assembly polls. Both wanted maximum tickets given to their loyalists. This had resulted in denial of tickets to many winning candidates, resulting in the Congress tally just stopping short of the halfway mark in the assembly polls.
When Gehlot loyalists were denied tickets, he reportedly tacitly encouraged his loyalists to contest as independents. Thus, out of the 13 independents who won, 10 are from the Gehlot camp. Hardly two dozen Sachin nominees managed to win the elections, giving Ghelot an upper hand during the selection of chief minister.
After Sachin lost out to Gehlot for the top post and agreed to be his deputy, he reportedly bargained for finance and home portfolios.
However, the chief minister did not agree and, finally, Sachin had to be satisfied with rural development, panchayati raj and PWD. The party high command also agreed to keep him as the PCC president .
However, the ride has been bumpy and differences continued to crop up after the Lok Sabha polls.
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