As the tussle between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former Deputy CM Sachin Pilot rages on, a quota twist has suddenly deepened the Rajasthan Congress crisis. For years, the state party unit has been split into two warring camps where hostilities flare up on a range of issues – from top leadership to petty posts, and ministerial berths to caste calculations.
The latest battle has erupted over an unlikely issue – anomalies in Other Backward Classes (OBC) quotas due to a change in rules by the previous BJP government in 2018 which allegedly enables ex-servicemen to dominate the quota for OBCs. The initial salvo too came from an unlikely source – Jat leader Harish Chaudhary, generally considered a Gehlot loyalist.
The senior MLA and former Cabinet Minister—Chaudhary is in-charge for Punjab Congress and stood with Gehlot in the prolonged feud with Pilot. But when the state cabinet deferred the quota issue last week, Chaudhary was livid.