Even though Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot flashed a victory sign as he paraded MLAs supporting him to mediapersons on Monday afternoon, the political crisis in the state appears to be continuing. Gehlot's loyalists declared he had the support of at least 109 MLAs in the 200-member Assembly, a claim disputed by the camp of Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot. Pilot plunged Rajasthan politics into crisis over the weekend as he moved to Delhi with MLAs who are his loyalists.
Hours after Gehlot paraded the MLAs on Monday afternoon, the Congress began moving them by buses to a resort in the state capital. “All is well,” Minister Mamta Bhupesh said before boarding one of the buses.
Gehlot also boarded one of the buses.
The Congress high command's emissaries, including Ajay Maken and Randeep Singh Surjewala, who were dispatched to resolve the crisis, are expected to stay in the same resort.
This is the second time in about a month that the Congress is moving its MLAs in Rajasthan to a resort. In the run-up to the Rajya Sabha polls, the party moved its legislators to a resort to avoid poaching attempts by the BJP.
Ironically, the 'resort politics' in Rajasthan would make it the fifth instance nationally of Congress legislators being moved around to avoid horse-trading. In July last year, a group of Congress MLAs who resigned from the Karnataka Assembly were moved by the BJP to hotels in Mumbai to precipitate the fall of the H.D. Kumaraswamy government in the southern state. In November last year, the Congress moved its newly elected legislators in Maharashtra, ironically, to Jaipur as the BJP and Shiv Sena jostled to stake claim to power after the Assembly polls threw up a fractured mandate.
In March, the Congress moved its MLAs in Gujarat to a resort in Jaipur to prevent poaching ahead of Rajya Sabha polls that were planned to be held that month. The Congress again moved its MLAs in Gujarat to a resort in the state in June after the Rajya Sabha polls were rescheduled. Eight Congress MLAs resigned from the party in the run-up to the Rajya Sabha polls.
In March, 21 Madhya Pradesh Congress MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia flew to Bengaluru and resigned from the party. Holed up in a resort in Bengaluru, the leaders refused to budge, leading to the resignation of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh.
