Sachin Pilot leads from the front in Rajasthan

Sachin Pilot, president of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, has been leading from the front in elections to 46 local bodies that are scheduled for November 22.

Pilot is amongst very few PCC chiefs who is actively campaigning in such elections. He's taking the battle right into the rival camp, often with effective results, as in September, when Congress won three out of four seats in the Assembly by-elections.

Here's how: 

1) At Sikar on November 14, he responded to the BJP proclamation of a big victory by retorting: “Main BJP ko bartan ki tarah maanj kar bata doonga ki Congress kya cheez hai.” ("I will wash the BJP out of these elections to show what the Congress is capable of.") He softly laughs when asked if this can be a catchy line for a dish washing powder. 

2) He gave a slogan 40-40 and implemented it by giving 40 per cent of the 1,629 tickets to those under 40. 

3) He travels hundreds of kilometres every day and will cover eight per cent of the constituencies, which means all the big and medium ones. 

4) When asked how come a PCC chief is campaigning so heavily for local body elections, breaking away from past traditions, he says: “Mere pas na koi kar khana hai na koi khet hai jehan hal jotna ho. Mere to full time kaam Congress ko revive karma hai.” ("I have neither a factory to take care of nor fields to plough. My full time job is to revive Congress.") 

5) The BJP has been working hard to ensure that it does not stumble in the local body elections as it did in the by-elections.

Gulab Chand Kataria, home minister and RSS leader, has been made in charge of these elections. Yet, besides Sachin Pilot, what makes the going difficult for the BJP are the following factors:

- It hasn't released its manifesto saying the one meant for the Assembly covers local bodies too.

- Chief minister Vasundhara Raje's election campaign programme has not been declared yet raising speculation that she might choose to skip it altogether.

- Some incidents have raised a question mark over the effectiveness of the BJP in governance in departments headed by ministers with an RSS background. People haven't forgotten the kidnapping and murder of a child in Kota last month and there were more incidents in the past week: the arrest of a pastor in Jaipur for molesting two inmates of an orphanage being run by him; two attacks on the police by history sheeters resulting in the killing of one head constable in Nagaur district; suicide by a 12-year-old alleging torture by teachers in Sirohi district and a woman paraded half naked on a donkey by tribal panchayats in Rajsamand district after she was accused of a murder.