"It's OK": On Ashok Gehlot's Defiance, Rahul Gandhi Cites Congress's "Room For Dissent"

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took the "internal democracy" line when asked about a Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's recent defiance to the party's plan to make him national chief. "In our structure there is clarity. We are not a dictatorship. We like discussion," Mr Gandhi said, with Mr Gehlot seated next to him.

Pressed on what action, if any, the party will take after Mr Gehlot's loyalists publicly opposed replacing him, possibly, with Sachin Pilot, Mr Gandhi insisted, "There is no indecision. It happens in a party. It has happened in Rajasthan; it's OK."

Factionalism will not hurt the party's prospects the Rajasthan elections due in a year, he claimed, "Zyada nuqsaan nahin hona chahiye (There should not be much damage). We have support among the common people. We fight elections on the back of our party workers at the grassroots. That's our way."

About who'll lead the party in the state polls, he said, "Ask (Mallikarjun) Kharge ji. He is the party president."

Mr Kharge, the first non-Gandhi Congress chief in two decades, won the chiefship election with the Gandhis' backing only after their first choice Ashok Gehlot didn't go along with the plan to take him national.

Mr Gehlot, 71, even called Sachin Pilot, 45, a "gaddar (traitor) who will never become chief minister" over his failed bid of 2020 to get his chair. At present, though, the two leaders — separated by age and ambition — have an uneasy truce after Rahul Gandhi's emissaries intervened.

Mr Gandhi was today speaking to the media at Dausa — from where Sachin Pilot's late father had won many elections — as his Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir Yatra today completed 100 days. 

“We have received overwhelming response in Rajasthan. I had thought the party was strong in Kerala, but the response in fact kept improving as we moved through Maharashtra, Karnataka and so on — which the media is not showing,” he said.

On the larger political scenario, he cited the recent victory in Himachal Pradesh and attributed the Gujarat loss to the presence of AAP.

Asserting that regional parties lack a national vision, he insisted that "only the Congress can bring down the BJP-RSS... and its agenda of divisiveness and hate".

He did agree with the idea of Opposition unity — the 2024 contest against PM Narendra Modi-led BJP is barely 15 months away — and, when asked about his party taking the lead, said, "I have a view; Congress must work with the Opposition. But you must ask the new congress president."

Attrition in the party does not bother him, he said, "If certain people want to leave Congress... They have been corrupt, they are scared of the BJP... They can leave. We don't want them. The more the merrier."