JAIPUR:
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had ordered tracking of phones and movements of party rebels, including bete noire Sachin Pilot during the 2020 Congress crisis in the state that threatened to remove him from the top post, the CM’s former aide claimed, days before the second phase of Lok Sabha polling in Rajasthan.
Lokesh Sharma, previously serving as an officer on special duty (OSD) to Gehlot, claimed that during the 2020 party crisis in the state, the former Rajasthan Chief Minister provided recordings of phone calls and instructed him to share them with the media.
However, Gehlot’s office has refused to comment on Sharma’s allegations.
Meanwhile, sources close to Pilot said that their stand is vindicated. ” We always said we were not negotiating with the BJP and were loyal to Congress,” they added.
I WAS MADE TO TAKE FALLOUT: GEHLOT’S EX-AIDE
Speaking at a press conference in Jaipur, the former OSD to Gehlot stated that despite enduring intense interrogations lasting 8-9 hours by the Crime Branch in Delhi regarding the phone tapping case, he had remained silent until now.
“The person who was responsible for the phone-tapping incident decided to leave me in the lurch. I was made to take the fallout,” Sharma added.
He also asserted that Gehlot handed him phone recordings of Union Minister and BJP leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, late Congress leader Bhanwarlal Sharma, and a middleman Sanjay Jain on a pen drive, instructing him to release it to the media.
During the press briefing, Sharma revealed that the phones of Pilot and his associates were tapped when it became known that they were planning to approach the Congress high command regarding issues with Gehlot’s leadership in the state.
“Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was made to look as the main accused in the whole issue and it was alleged that BJP along with Sachin Pilot and other MLAs are trying to topple the government. They wanted to prove that the BJP was behind all this. Which was not the case. Then Deputy CM Sachin Pilot even said that no one was listening to them even when they wanted to tell their side of the story, so they all got together and reached the party’s high command. But as soon as CM Ashok Gehlot got to know of this, he put everyone’s phones on surveillance and was tracking them, including Sachin Pilot,” Sharma said.
In 2020, the release of three audio clips allegedly involving a person identified as Gajendra Singh (suspected to be Shekhawat), Bhanwarlal Sharma, Sanjay Jain, and another Congress leader Vishvendra Singh caused a political crisis in Rajasthan. These recordings purportedly captured discussions about orchestrating the downfall of the Gehlot government. Following the leak, then Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot led a rebellion of 19 Congress MLAs.
Sharma has also been named as an accused in an FIR filed in Delhi in March 2021, following a complaint by BJP leader Shekhawat concerning these audio recordings. He has been summoned and interrogated several times by the Delhi Police regarding this matter.
Pilot and Gehlot were engaged in a power tussle after the Congress formed the government in the state in 2018. In 2020, Pilot led a failed revolt against the Gehlot government after which he was removed from the posts of the party’s state unit president and deputy chief minister.
