Sachin Pilot’s bete noire and the utterer of those words quoted above is none of that, neither pretty boy nor young gun. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is a hard-bitten veteran juggler of political football. He kicks one toward the goal and wants the goalkeeper to do a bicycle-kick into his own goal! And ‘English’ is not Gehlot’s lot. He would rather impress with the lingo of the land – Hindi and whatever else is spoken in Rajasthan. Not that Sachin is any less adept in making himself understood to the Gujjars and Jats and Dalits and Muslims of Rajasthan. If anybody got the Congress to power in Rajasthan, it was Sachin Pilot in the cockpit and Gehlot in the tail.

Ah! But when it came to the sweepstakes, Gehlot got the plum! Thanks to the other English-speaking, clean shaven pretty boy, the one at the helm of the Congress even if he doesn’t want to be. ‘Him’ and his mother swung the vote in Gehlot’s favour and Gehlot’s flavor is the ‘age-old,’ Congress card sharps who hold all the aces and do not tolerate ‘jokers.’ Sad to say, but Sachin Pilot is no ‘god’ like the other Sachin who also bats for the Congress.

That in a nutshell is the current imbroglio in the Congress with Sachin Pilot in the main role sinking in the hole. Gehlot sits pretty in the cockpit because Sachin Pilot couldn’t get 30 Congress MLAs to hole up suites in a 7-Star hotel in BJP-ruled Haryana. And the BJP, looking to cash in the cards, is agape if not aghast at what’s unfolding. Pilot wanting to do a Scindia has failed. He is the cuckoo who couldn’t find a crow’s nest to lay eggs in. Besides, apart from the Republic and other here-and-now TV news channels, nobody is making a caw-caw at Pilot’s relegation.

Sachin Pilot is no longer deputy chief minister and neither is he Rajasthan PCC president. Sachin’s chopper is floundering in choppy waters and unless he extends a hand for a lifejacket, he’ll sink. Besides, he’s getting flak for being not being man enough to cut loose and junk the Congress. Problem for Sachin is that whatever brokerage fee Sachin hoped to get from the BJP could not be had after things went for a six when he failed to play Pied Piper to enough number of Congress MLAs.

Unlike Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot has been given the ‘Congress treatment’ of old, treatment reserved for such shifts in allegiance. Also, Scindia’s exit was with a machinegun-like rat-a-tat while Sachin’s halted exit is like a duel that did not take place. Sachin did not have a ‘second’ to back him and ‘seconds’ are essential to a duel. Sachin Pilot wants to be Chief Minister but look at the “MLAs” he commands. There’s not one with a ‘presence,’ not a single MLA who can carry his own weight.

Those housed in ‘7-Star’ luxury are minnows. Several have deserted ship and more will. Mind you, Sachin’s critics are laying it on him, calling him “greedy” and “over-ambitious”, as if ambition is a four-letter word, and just as if Gehlot and Rahul Gandhi do not have that vice. The so-called ‘lackeys’ in the family hacienda are all lined up in the verandah at the front throwing rotten tomatoes on Sachin Pilot to compel him to either grovel and make a comeback or get the hell out.

Point is, ‘pretty boy’ hasn’t the oats to fire back in similar coin. Also, it appears Sachin Pilot cut things too fine. Most important, the Congress party’s ‘old-bag’ leadership – the so-called ‘high command’ – is in no mood to relent. Sachin doing a Scindia is not acceptable. Even otherwise the ‘family’ is finished with bearded loudmouths. Sanjay Jha! Jha had been hiding in plain sight. Now he’s as if to the gladiator-born, chipping and slashing at the high command culture. Some quarters will say the sickness like Covid-19 is catching.

That said, neither one Scindia nor another Pilot will make a summer of Congress discontent. It’s not that Sachin Pilot lacks in guts, it’s just that he is to square a shooter. The electorate of Rajasthan knew his worth but for politicians like Gehlot it’s the here and now that matters. If rebuilding the Congress to a force to reckon with all over again was the goal, the Gandhi family, the high command, would have long ago made peace with an emerging second-rung Congress leadership. (IPA Service)