BJP taunts Congress on Rajasthan Min's resignation offer; 'Ship is sinking ahead of polls'

After Rajasthan Minister Ashok Chandna asked to be relieved of his post on Thursday, BJP's state unit president Satish Poonia took a swipe at the Congress party. A two-time MLA from the Hindoli seat, Chandna holds Independent Charge of Sports & Youth Affairs and Skill, Employment & Entrepreneurship besides serving as the Minister of State for DIPR, Disaster Management & Relief, Administrative Reforms & Coordination Dept, Statistics and Policy Planning. In a sensational charge, he accused Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot's Principal Secretary Kuldeep Ranka of indirectly controlling all Ministries. 

Ashok Chandna said, "I request the honourable chief minister to relieve me of this dishonourable ministerial post and give the charge of all my departments to Shri Kuldeep Ranka Ji. He is anyway the minister of all the departments". Commenting on this, Rajasthan BJP chief Satish Poonia opined, ”The ship is sinking…The trends for 2023 have started to arrive". This was a reference to his belief that Congress is all set to lose the 2023 Rajasthan polls. 

Political scenario in Rajasthan

In the 2018 election, Congress won 100 seats in the 200-member Assembly as compared to the BJP which had to settle for 73 seats. However, there was disappointment in the Sachin Pilot camp as the Tonk MLA had to settle for the Deputy CM's post despite being the president of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee. In July 2020, he fell out of favour after briefly leading a rebellion to pressurise the Congress high command to replace Ashok Gehlot as the Chief Minister. While he managed to mend fences with the party top brass, he hasn't been given a formal role in the organization yet.

As per sources, Pilot gave an ultimatum to Congress president Sonia Gandhi to change the leadership in the state during their meeting on April 21 citing that the party will lose all polls under Gehlot. Speaking to the media after the meeting, he said, "Rajasthan is a state where every 5 years there's a government change and I think if we do the right things like we have started to do as a Committee of the AICC was formed two years ago, through which some steps were taken in the right direction. We need to further move in that direction so that Congress wins the 2023 elections in Rajasthan".

Meanwhile, BJP has also faced an internal crisis since 2018 with Vasundhara Raje reducing her participation in political activities amid her rumoured rift with Poonia. In fact, erstwhile BJP ally Rashtriya Loktantrik Party accused Raje of trying to save the Congress government in Rajasthan during Pilot's rebellion. In recent months, the clamour has grown within BJP to formally announce her as the party's CM candidate in the 2023 polls. It is worth noting that Gehlot failed to bring back Congress to power in 2003 as well as 2013 when he was the CM, with Raje leading BJP to a victory on both occasions.