Ashok Gehlot and Gajendra Shekhawat: Split by animosity, linked by journey arc

Both of them launched their political careers from student politics. Then they went on to get elected to the Lok Sabha from Jodhpur constituency before being inducted into the Union ministry. Gehlot, 70, is a three-time Congress CM, while Shekhawat, 54, is perceived to be a potential CM candidate of the saffron party in the state.

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Notwithstanding such commonalities, Gehlot and Shekhawat have a fiercely adversarial relationship, with both leaders frequently going after each other and trading fireworks on a range of issues.

The latest bone of contention between them is the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) – an ambitious state project worth Rs 40,000 crore aimed at ensuring water for drinking and irrigation in 13 districts of south-eastern Rajasthan – for which Gehlot has been demanding the national project status from the BJP-ruled Centre, maintaining that such a huge project cost could not be borne by the state government alone.

On his part, Shekhawat, at a recent event, dared Rajasthan PHED Minister Mahesh Joshi to prove his claim that PM Modi had said the ERCP will be declared as a national project, denying it and adding he would quit politics if proved wrong. Thereafter, the Rajasthan Congress tweeted videos of PM Modi purportedly talking about the ERCP project in 2018.

Last Sunday, while speaking to reporters in Bikaner, Gehlot accused Shekhawat of not pitching for water projects in his home state Rajasthan, which faces acute water shortage due to its arid climate, despite being the Union Jal Shakti Minister. “Pradhan Mantri ji ne pata nahin kya dekh ke selection kiya inka. (I don’t know what the Prime Minister saw in him that he selected Shekhawat as a minister),” the CM said.

Keeping his guns trained on Shekhawat, Gehlot also said, “Hamara kendriya mantri ban gaya jal sansadhan mantri. To kam se kam ek pariyojana ko to rashtriya pariyojana ghoshit karvae. Itni bhi uski aukat me nahin hai? To fir wo kahe waha pe hai fir, jo prime minister ko convince hi na kar sake (Our central minister from Rajasthan has become the water resource minister. Then he should see that at least one of our projects (ERCP) is declared a national project. He doesn’t even have the standing to do this? Then what kind of a minister he is, who can’t convince the PM about it?).”

Returning the fire Monday, Shekhawat unleashed a tweetstorm, charging that Gehlot’s remarks betrayed his “bitterness” over the fact that he had defeated the CM’s son Vaibhav Gehlot from Jodhpur seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“He (CM Gehlot) hasn’t been able to forget the result of the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat, wherein the public had blessed me to make Modi ji the Prime Minister. Since then he considers me as a big enemy. But I have sympathy for him. He not only misuses the government machinery to provoke me but also himself makes such remarks regularly,” Shekhawat tweeted in Hindi.

श्री अशोक गहलोत जी के बयानों में मुझे जोधपुर में उनके पुत्र की हार की खीझ सुनाई देती है।

वे आज तक जोधपुर लोकसभा सीट का परिणाम नहीं भूल पाए हैं, जिसमें जनता जनार्दन ने मोदीजी को प्रधानमंत्री बनाने के लिए मुझे आशीर्वाद दिया था।
1/n#Rajasthan

— Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (@gssjodhpur) April 11, 2022

Shekhawat started his political innings in 1992 when he was elected as the student union president of the Jai Narain Vyas University (JNVU) in Jodhpur as an ABVP leader. He first became an MP in 2014 from Jodhpur – a constituency represented by Ashok Gehlot five times between 1980 and 1998.

Shekhawat was the “first choice” of the BJP leadership as the party’s Rajasthan unit president in 2018, but it was shot down due to objections from party stalwart and then CM Vasundhara Raje, with whom he is known to share a frosty equation.

Gehlot’s political career took off in 1974 when he became the president of the Congress’s students wing NSUI. In the 1980 parliamentary elections, he won as the party nominee from Jodhpur seat and was appointed after a couple of years by then PM Indira Gandhi as a junior tourism minster. In 1998, he was appointed as the CM despite not having contested the Assembly election. He later won a bypoll from Sardarpura in Jodhpur and has since then won from the seat in the 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018 Assembly elections. He had also been the Rajasthan Congress chief.

Shekhawat’s tussle with Raje is also reminiscent of Gehlot’s own power struggles with Rajasthan Congress satraps.

The Jat community had voted in favour of the Congress in the 1998 polls apparently in hope of seeing the party’s Jat leader Parasram Maderna as the CM. But, the Congress high command named the then young Jodhpur MP Gehlot as the CM.

BJP sources maintain that Shekhawat has been among a few Rajasthan BJP leaders who have been nurturing chief ministerial ambitions with the hope that if the party manages to win the next state elections in 2023, the leadership may prefer a new face to the two-time ex-CM Raje.

Like Gehlot, Shekhawat was also picked as a junior minister in 2017 despite being a first-time MP.

Gehlot had campaigned extensively for Vaibhav in Jodhpur in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but the latter lost to Shekhawat with a margin of over 2.7 lakh votes.

The animosity between Gehlot and Shekhawat have risen consistently since, with both leaders regularly indulging in a verbal duel.

During the 2020 Congress crisis, the Gehlot camp had accused Shekhawat of being allegedly involved in a plot to topple his government, citing voices in some audio tapes, which the party alleged was that of Shekhawat – who denied the allegations.

Last year, the Delhi Police crime branch registered an FIR against Lokesh Sharma, an officer on special duty (OSD) to CM Gehlot, on the basis of Shekhawat’s complaint, for “illegally intercepting telephonic conversations” of several MLAs and persons and circulating them to various media houses. Shekhawat alleged, in his complaint, that this was done to achieve “unlawful objectives and to cause injury to the reputation and mental peace of the complainant”.

Joining issue with him Sunday, Gehlot charged, “Who is letting him (Shekhawat) become the chief minister? He is dreaming of becoming the chief minister. It is him who should be in jail. He was the main character in trying to topple the government.”

The CM also alleged Shekhawat’s involvement in the multi-crore Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society Ponzi scam, which the latter has refuted.

Hitting back, Shekhawat tweeted Monday that “much like Gehlot, his way of politics has become irrelevant” and that “he should retire from politics, even people from his own party want this”.