JAIPUR: In his sharpest-ever attack on Sachin Pilot, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has called him a ‘traitor’ who “will never be accepted as the CM of Rajasthan.” Gehlot’s comments came in an interview with NDTV where he also asserted that Pilot was hand in glove with the BJP and claimed that he had proof that MLAs were offered Rs 5-10 crores during the revolt led by Pilot in 2020.
With this attack, the political war between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot has taken a new form ahead of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.
In the interview, Gehlot called Pilot a ‘traitor’ many times and claimed that the Congress high command will never make Pilot the CM.
Gehlot’s attack on Pilot came at a time when he was joining the Bharat Jodo Yatra along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi in Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh.
Gehlot said that “the man who does not have 10 MLAs, who rebelled to get power and kept the party in deception is a traitor. He can never become the CM.” Gehlot did not stop there and talked about the Pilot group taking crores of rupees from the BJP and said he has proof of all this.
In 2020, the Gehlot government was in crisis when Pilot and 19 MLAs supporting him had camped in a hotel in Manesar. “This would be the first time in the country that a party president tried to topple his own government (in 2020). They were funded by BJP and because of them we sat in hotels for 34 days,” asserted Gehlot.
He added, “They were trying to topple our government and Amit Shah and Dharmendra Pradhan were also involved in this saga. Pradhan actually used to come to meet the MLAs at the Manesar’s hotel.”