Rajasthan Congress ministers meet Rahul Gandhi amidst tensions

Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot on Tuesday met Congress president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi separately in New Delhi as BJP demands the resignation of CM Ashok Gehlot on moral grounds.

The Congress failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat in Rajasthan despite a winning the assembly elections there just  a few months back.

CM Ashok Gehlot had told reporters, “The media often reports what was discussed but sometimes it reports things out of context. However, as Congress president, Rahul Gandhi has every right to point out mistakes by any of us when we were discussing what went wrong. He has the right to point out any shortcomings that may have happened during the campaign.”

Congress faced defeat on all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state. BJP won 24 seats and its alliance partner Rashtriya Loktantrik Party headed by Hanuman Beniwal won one seat.

“Wherever you go in Rajasthan, you hear one voice — Congress. The results of the Lok Sabha elections would have been different had the party made Sachin Pilot chief minister as a reward for his hard work over five years,” wrote Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee secretary Sushil Asopa on Facebook.

“The public says it was because of Pilot’s hard work over five years that a favourable atmosphere for the party was created and the party’s MLA candidates won,” Asopa added.

Jyoti Khandelwal, former Mayor of Jaipur, said she wrote a letter to Rahul Gandhi before the counting of votes, seeking a detailed analysis of the party’s functioning in Jaipur constituency, where she lost.

“There was no impact of the Modi wave on the Jaipur seat where Congress vote share has increased as compared to the 2014 elections. Leaders and workers were not active in Malviya Nagar assembly constituency under the Jaipur Lok Sabha seat and the booth management was poor,” she said.