A day after Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot indirectly targeted former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Sachin Pilot by stating that the BJP bid to topple his government by paying huge sums of money to some Congress MLAs failed in 2020 because former BJP CM Vasundhara Raje had then opposed the horse-trading, Pilot hit back by saying his party’s CM spoke as if Raje, not Sonia Gandhi, was his leader.

Pilot said Gehlot’s charge that some Congress MLAs had then taken money from the BJP leadership and that they were yet to return it was false. He also announced a yatra from Ajmer to Jaipur against “inaction against corruption” and on the issues of the youth.

Amid the continuing infighting in the Rajasthan Congress, Pilot is also now being seen as a chronic rebel without the backing of a substantial number of MLAs to threaten or destabilise the Gehlot government. But the timing of yatra move comes right ahead of Karnataka assembly election results.

Reacting sharply to Gehlot’s remarks in Dholpur the day before, Pilot told media persons, “After hearing the chief minister’s speech in Dholpur, I think his leader is not Sonia Gandhi, but his leader is Vasundhara Raje… He (Gehlot) alleges that BJP tried to topple his government. Then he says a BJP leader helped save his government. He should explain the contradiction.. I now understand why no action was taken against corruption by the Vasundhara Raje government despite my repeated requests.”

Gehlot’s response had come after Pilot publicly asked why the state government was not probing alleged corrupt deals during the Raje regime.

In an attempt to drag Pilot back to the unsuccessful toppling bid he made in 2020, Gehlot on Monday said, “My government could be saved because of the support of three BJP leaders – former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, former assembly speaker Kailash Meghwal and MLA Shobharani Kushwaha.”