Many ask this question and sometimes, most of the people unanimously think that Sachin Pilot will join BJP. Will he join BJP? I don’t think so. Sachin Pilot has no future in BJP or in Congress. Why? Read On.
Since the first assembly election in 1952 to the 1985 eight assembly election, it was Congress ruling Rajasthan except for a brief period of 1977-1980 when Janata Party ruled Rajasthan. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was the CM on behalf of the Janata Party. In 1990, BJP along with Janata Dal (both were emerged out of Janata Party) got the majority. In 1993, BJP became the largest party with 95 seats and formed a coalition government led by Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.
In the 1998 assembly elections, Congress got 153 seats with the three-fourth majority while BJP got just 33 seats. That was the only time when Congress got a majority of its own. Since then although governments were changed alternatively, Congress never got the majority of its own, rather whenever BJP won, it got the majority of its own. For example, in 2003 and 2013, BJP got 120 and 163 against Congress’ 56 and 21 respectively. On the other hand, in 2008 and 2018 Congress got 96 and 100 seats against BJP’s 78 and 73 seats.
Even if we consider Parliament elections since 1989, BJP was getting more seats than Congress, except in 1998 and 2009. In 2014 and 2019, BJP got all the Loksabha seats. All these data above shows that Rajasthan is a BJP dominated state where anti-incumbency gave some advantage to Congress to be the single largest party in the last two decades. After Narendra Modi entered into the national polity, Rajasthan is wholeheartedly rallying behind Narendra Modi.
Let’s come to Sachin Pilot. If he joins BJP, will he get CM post? The answer is a clear no. He can’t supersede many veterans like Vasundhara Raje, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and others. Does he stand any chance in BJP’s central government? Well, at best, he can be an MoS. He was already Deputy CM in Rajasthan and in Congress culture, his maximum position is to be the CM of the state. With Congress, he wasn’t given the CM post, in BJP he would never get the CM post, then what’s his gambit?
Here you can ask an expert, had there been no Sachin Pilot, Vasundhara Raje would have retained power through the charisma of Narendra Modi. In the 2018 assembly election, BJP had a vote share of 38.8%, which is just 0.5% less than the vote share of Congress (39.3%). One can gauge Sachin Pilot’s contribution from 2013 to 2018. It’s him who mobilized votes for Congress to counter Narendra Modi’s charisma. It was a fact that Vasundhra Raje was facing huge anti-incumbency, but Narendra Modi’s campaign almost made BJP the winner, but it’s Sachin Pilot who takes away many votes, even from people who are fans of Narendra Modi.
Congress did a blunder in denying Sachin Pilot his due. Maybe the Congress high command depended on old guard or didn’t want to give chance to Sachin Pilot to emerge as a mass leader who could be a threat to the dynasty. Whatever might have happened, Sachin Pilot knows that he doesn’t have any future in Congress.
Here we must realize that the Sachin Pilot case is very different from Jyotoraditya Scindia and Hemant Biswasarma. Scindia influenced a part of MP and was cornered by both Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh. So, he had no future in Congress nor he is considered as a leader of the whole of MP. Similarly, in the presence of Tarun Gogoi and his son Gourav Gogoi, Hemant had no future in Assam and he alone can’t sustain a party.
But Sachin Pilot can float an independent regional party. He was the face of Congress for the last six years. If he floats a party, he could add many Congress leaders and ground workers of the state. His regional party can occupy the entire Congress space in Rajasthan. Just see the example of Andhra Pradesh! The Congress high command denied Jagan Ready his due and YSRCP simply occupied entire Congress space in Andhra Pradesh.
Sachin pilot may not succeed in the 2023 assembly election (although anything can happen in politics) but he can expand his party nationally accommodating many youth Congress leaders like Jatin Prasad, Milind Deora, Kuldip Bishnoi and many others from the pan-India-Congress space. He could be a better challenger to the Narendra Modi led BJP within the national space rather than the Rahul Gandhi led Congress.
Thus, I won’t be surprised if Sachin pilot floats his regional party post expelling/quitting/disqualification from Congress party. Those who think he will join BJP, I think they need to understand the real politics and ambition of youth leaders.
Will the Congress government topple in Rajasthan? I have my doubts. However, I won’t be surprised if there would be a mid-term election in 2021.