Gehlot, Pilot agree to work together after meeting with Cong leadership

The Congress, on Monday, put a united front after Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot held a four-hour-long discussion with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in the national capital.

"We have decided to fight elections unitedly. Definitely, we will win the elections in Rajasthan. Both Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot have unanimously agreed with the proposal," Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said after the meeting.

Venugopal said Gehlot and Pilot agreed to work together to defeat the saffron party in Rajasthan. "It will be a joint fight against BJP, we will win the state," news agency ANI quoted him as saying.

This was the first time after a long gap that the Rajasthan CM and his former deputy met face-to-face in the presence of top party leadership.

Pilot has been attacking the Gehlot government over the issue of inaction on corruption during the previous BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje.

The meeting came close on the heels of Pilot's "ultimatum" that if three demands he made from the state government were not met by the end of this month, he would launch a state-wide agitation. Pilot has asked for a high-level inquiry into the alleged scams that took place during the tenure of the former chief minister Vasundhara Raje government, as one of his demands.

Gehlot and Pilot have been engaged in a power tussle since the Congress formed government in the state in 2018. In 2020, Pilot led a failed revolt against the Gehlot government after which he was removed from the posts of party's state unit president and deputy chief minister.

Pilot had, last month, defied a warning from the party and went ahead with a day-long fast targeting Gehlot over his "inaction" on alleged corruption during the previous Raje government.

—With PTI inputs