Rajasthan Congress MLA suggests to replace Ashok Gehlot with Sachin Pilot as Chief Minister after poll debacle

While the party has witnessed several rifts and spree of resignations of its state chiefs and other important leaders, this time a Congress MLA has said that Ashok Gehlot should be replaced with his deputy Sachin Pilot as Rajasthan chief minister.

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot with his deputy Sachin Pilot. (Image: PTI)

New Delhi: Internal rifts seem to be splurging within the Congress party after facing shocking debacle in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019. While the party has witnessed several rifts and spree of resignations of its state chiefs and other important leaders, this time a Congress MLA has said that Ashok Gehlot should be replaced with his deputy Sachin Pilot as Rajasthan chief minister. Blaming Gehlot for party's poor performance in Rajasthan in the Lok Sabha Polls, Todabhim MLA Prithviraj Meena said the chief minister should bear the responsibility for the election drubbing after the party failed to bag any of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state. "A chief minister is responsible for an election defeat when the party is in power and when it is in the opposition, the responsibility lies with the party president," Meena told reporters at the party office in Jaipur today. The MLA, however, said it was his individual opinion that Sachin Pilot should be made the CM. On Tuesday, Meena had expressed displeasure over Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's remarks in an interview with ABP News that his deputy and state Congress chief Sachin Pilot should take responsibility for his son Vaibhav Gehlot's defeat from Jodhpur, suggesting that it was against the interest of the party. Of the 25 in the state, the BJP won 24 and its alliance partner Rashtriya Loktantrik Party won one in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections. "Pilot had said that Vaibhav would win by a huge margin because we have six MLAs (in Jodhpur) and that good campaigning was done in the area. Given the reasons, I think that he should take responsibility for Vaibhav's defeat. There will be a post-mortem of the party's defeat in Jodhpur seat to find out why we could not win," Gehlot said while speaking to ABP News earlier. However, the Rajasthan CM later on took to Twitter and clarified his statement and said that it has been taken out of context. Gehlot shared a video clip of the interview on micro-blogging site and wrote: "This was reply to some questions during interview…Some sections of the media are making unnecessary issue out of the context." Here's what Rajasthan CM said during an interaction with ABP News:

This was reply to some questions during interview…Some sections of the media are making unnecessary issue out of the context. pic.twitter.com/oLk9mQEwiN

— Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) June 4, 2019

Jodhpur was considered to be Ashok Gehlot's stronghold for several years and he was elected five times from the Lok Sabha seat. His son, however, lost to the BJP, which took 24 of the 25 seats in the state, with one seat going to its ally. In his maiden election, Vaibhav Gehlot lost to Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat by a margin of 2,74,440 votes. After the poll debacle, even Congress president Rahul Gandhi had also reportedly criticised Gehlot for putting his son above the party.