Ending Clash : Sachin Pilot Reveals Truce With CM Ashok Gehlot On party president Mallikarjun Kharge’s Insistence ; Bats For Collective Leadership In Forthcoming Assembly Polls

Former Rajasthan PCC chief and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot made it clear that he has buried the hatchet with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on the advice of party president Mallikarjun Kharge, saying collective leadership was the “only way” forward going into the assembly polls.

In an exclusive interview with PTI just days after the crucial Rajasthan polls strategy meeting of the party, Pilot said Kharge advised him to “forgive and forget” and move forward. “It was as much an advice as a directive.” “Ashok Gehlot ji is older than me, he has more experience. He has heavy responsibilities on his shoulders. When I was the Rajasthan Congress president, I tried to take everyone along. I think that today he is the Chief Minister (Gehlot), so he is trying to take everyone along.

“If there is a little back and forth, then it is not a big issue because the party and the public are more important than any individual. I also understand this and he also understands it,” the former Rajasthan deputy chief minister said.

Asked about Gehlot calling him names in the past and his criticism of the Gehlot government over inaction on issues such as corruption in the previous Vasundhara Raje government, Pilot said that in a meeting with him, Congress chief Kharge said that time that has gone by will not come back and one has to look at the future.

“He (Kharge) said forgive and forget and look forward and that is applicable to everybody. I believe in that, we now have to move forward and meet new challenges. This country needs the Congress to do well. We need to seek blessings of the people of Rajasthan and in order to do that we have to work unitedly and move forward in a way that is acceptable to the people and to the party workers,” Pilot said.

“So who said what, at which time, there is no point talking about it as it does not mean anything. I have always refrained from using any word or language that I feel is unpleasant or is something that I would not want to hear about myself. In public life and politics, it is always good to maintain certain dignity of discourse,” Pilot said.

“Next challenge for us is to win elections, neither individuals nor statements matter, those are bygones,” he said.

His remarks come after Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC in-charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Randhawa, Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Govind Dotasra, he and several MLAs and ministers from the state attended a polls strategy meeting at the AICC headquarters . Gehlot, who is recovering from injuries to his toes, attended the meeting via video conferencing.

Asked how he looks at AAP making forays into Rajasthan, Pilot said, “I think people understand that their votes are important and every vote counts. So while I don’t want to disregard to brush aside any political challenge that we may face in Rajasthan, but I can say with some confidence that the main contest will be between the Congress and the BJP.” He also stressed that the Congress has to win many more states and then it will have in 2024, a platform of Congress-ruled states which will obviously pay dividends in the Lok Sabha elections.

“In 2018, despite winning the three states (Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan), in Parliament polls, we did not do well at all but those were exceptional circumstances. I don’t want to go into exactly what happened in those elections but that I think is an individual case in point and now people have seen nine years of the NDA government and in most cases the double engine has failed,” Pilot said.