Rajesh Pilot (1945-2000) Rajesh Pilot (1945-2000)

In politics, as in life, death becomes a lasting guardian of secrets.

On June 9, two days before Rajesh Pilot died in a road accident near Jaipur, the challenger to Congress President Sonia Gandhi had an intriguingly long meeting with her. Did he hold out the olive branch to her? Or was it the other way round? The answer has died with Pilot. It has lost its relevance too.

After the acrimonious exit of Sharad Pawar from the party last year, Pilot alone had the potential to give Sonia a fight in the All India Congress Committee election slated for this year. Contesting for the president's chair is not an everyday affair in the Congress.

In its 115-year history, the party has put its presidentship to the ballot only on three occasions. It happened last in 1997 when Sitaram Kesri won the post against Pawar and Pilot.



It was after the expulsion of Pawar, P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar before last year's mid-term poll that Pilot emerged as the central point of resentment against dynastic leadership. Pilot refrained from joining the rebels at the last moment. It was an astute move. After the subsequent debacle of the Congress at the polls, its top leaders were disillusioned with Sonia but had neither the stamina nor the temperament to throw their hat into the ring.



Pilot had both in abundance. But his best asset was a certain uprightness in public life, including his conduct in the party. His two eminent contemporaries, Madhavrao Scindia and Digvijay Singh, lacked the spirit to question Sonia's leadership.



Pilot had always maintained a distance from 10 Janpath. Since last month, he stepped up his campaign against Sonia by teaming up with Jitendra Prasada, another rebel CWC leader, and holding rallies. He recently appeared on BBC's Hard Talk in which he criticised Sonia's leadership but stopped short of calling for her resignation.



In that interview, when asked if he'd like to be the prime minister, he had said "yes". This frankness marked him out in a party so long muzzled by dynastic control that it holds aspiring for the top post to be a sin.