Ashok Gehlot rejects Sachin Pilot's 'Raje leader, not Sonia' barb: 'Never had relations'

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot dismissing charges of collusion with Vasundhara Raje stated people spreading such rumours is very dangerous, he further added in politics the fight is always on the premise of ideology and policies. Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Nagaur CM Gehlot said he has spoken just over a dozen times with Vasundhara Raje in the past fifteen years.

“Vasundhara Raje & I never had any relations. Now people are provoking & spreading rumours about it, these people are very dangerous. Everyone has to understand that fighting in politics is about ideology and policies,” said Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot. Notably, Gehlot's statement comes amid the ongoing political standoff between him and Senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot who is holding a Jan Sangharsh Padayatra on the issues of corruption against his own government in Rajasthan.    

#WATCH | Nagaur, Rajasthan: Vasundhara Raje & I never had any relations. Now people are provoking & spreading rumours about it, these people are very dangerous. Everyone has to understand that fight in politics is about ideology and policies: Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot pic.twitter.com/WYnOyYeZPx

— ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) May 13, 2023

‘Gehlot’s leader is Raje, not Sonia Gandhi’: Sachin Pilot

Reacting to Gehlot's statement that Raje had helped in saving his government during the political crisis, Pilot had gone to the extent of saying in the press conference in Jaipur on Tuesday (May 9) that “it appeared from Gehlot's statement that his leader is Vasundhara Raje and not Sonia Gandhi.” Gehlot in a public rally in Nagaur on May 13 said that there is a vast difference in his thinking and that of Raje and that they would have talked hardly 15 times in the last 15 years.

Ashok Gehlot said that his remarks in the context of Raje were misconstrued, "I had said in Dholpur that Vasundhara ji and Kailash ji helped in saving my government. People misinterpreted it. She did not come to me and said that I am standing with you,” he said. Further adding on the same lines, Gehlot cited Kailash Meghwal as saying that Rajasthan doesn’t have a tradition of toppling governments and that what he said with reference to Vasundhara Raje was on the basis of what he had ‘heard.’ “...it is not like Vasundhara herself said (to me) that she is saving the government...,” he said.