Who will replace Ashok Gehlot as next Rajasthan chief minister? 

New Delhi: It is final now. After much dilly dallying, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has agreed to contest the upcoming elections to the Congress president's post. 

Gehlot’s successor will be elected at a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting called in Jaipur on Sunday at 7 pm. He will then resign from the post, and is likely to file his nomination papers on Monday.

That will also bring down curtains on his third term as the chief minister, nearly one year ahead of the assembly elections in the desert state.

NewsDrum had on May 13 reported that Gehlot's days as the Rajasthan chief minister are numbered and that he will move to Delhi in a bigger organisational role. 

Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Congress general secretary in-charge of organisation KC Venugopal announced that the CLP will meet on September 25 at 7 pm. 

He also informed that Congress President Sonia Gandhi has appointed Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge as the central observer. 

Kharge along with Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Ajay Maken will attend the CLP meeting, bringing curtains to Gehlot's third term as the chief minister one year before the assembly elections were due in the state. 

Gehlot was keen to hold both the posts of the Congress president and the chief minister but the one-man, one-post norm adopted at a brainstorming session in Udaipur in May this year barred him from doing that. 

He could have continued as the chief minister till the declaration of results on October 19 but the Congress high command wanted an early and smooth transition of power in the state.

Initially adamant on staying put as the chief minister, he refused to shift to Delhi but was finally persuaded by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to contest the polls and also resign from the post before filing the nomination papers.

There were apprehensions that Gehlot might influence the election of the new chief minister if he got elected as the Congress president. 

Gehlot's bete noire Sachin Pilot is hoping to replace him. The fact that Gehlot agreed to give up the chief minister’s post before filing the nomination papers has come as a shot in Pilot’s arm.

But there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. The wily politician does not want to hand over the baton to Pilot, who led a revolt against him in July 2020 and almost brought down his government. The two don’t see eye-to-eye since then.

Gehlot wants one of his loyalists – Bulaki Das Kalla, known as BD Kalla, or Mahesh Joshi-- to be sworn in as his successor. Both are at present ministers in his cabinet. To stop Pilot, he could even agree on his known baiter and Speaker CP Joshi, who is also the second choice of the Congress leadership after Pilot.

A Brahmin leader, Joshi narrowly missed a chance to be the Rajasthan chief minister in 2008 when he lost the assembly elections from Nathdwara constituency by just one vote. 

He then won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Bhilwara and was inducted into the union cabinet headed by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. 

From 2009 to 2013, he held the portfolios of rural development, railways and road transport and highways ministries. 

Subsequently, Joshi was brought to the party and appointed as a general secretary in-charge of Bihar, Assam and Northeastern states.

In 2018, he successfully contested the assembly elections from Nathdwara and became the Speaker. 

So far, Gehlot has maintained a firm grip over a large number of legislators but the big question is whether he would be able to sustain that hold and force the leadership to accept his choice.

But if the Congress high command manages to get Pilot installed as the chief minister, it would also put a question mark on Gehlot’s authority in his future role.

As seen in Punjab, all the legislators who were loyal to Captain Amarinder Singh till a few days ago changed tack the day the Congress leadership summoned the CLP meeting.

Amarinder subsequently resigned from the post in September last year and Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi replaced him. However, the Congress badly lost the assembly elections earlier this year with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) registering a stupendous victory.

It remains to be seen if the Congress in Rajasthan will see a repeat of Punjab.