Sachin Pilot axed out of Rajasthan Cabinet, tweets, 'Grateful to those who supported me'

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New Delhi: Congress on Tuesday (July 14) cracked down on Sachin Pilot, stripping the dissident leader of the posts of Rajasthan's deputy chief minister and the party's state unit president and sacking two loyalists from the state cabinet.

Though the party seems to have the numbers for now to hang on to power in Rajasthan, the development deepens the crisis in Congress, which has lost two major states - Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh over the past year.

According to reports, Pilot has been upset since Congress picked Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthan Chief Minister after the 2018 assembly polls, while his own supporters insisted that he deserved credit for the party's victory as its state unit president.

His next move was not immediately clear. During the run-up to Tuesday's CLP meeting, his supporters insisted that he had no plans to join the BJP. They said their aim was a leadership change in Rajasthan.

"Truth can be rattled, not defeated," Pilot tweeted in Hindi soon after he was sacked. In another tweet, he said, "

Gehlot accused his former deputy of playing into the hands of the BJP."I am very sad that horse-trading was going on," he said.

Pilot had kept away from the first CLP meeting on Monday and sources said 18 other Congress MLAs had also skipped it, giving an indication of the dissident leader's strength.

The state assembly has 200 MLAs and those close to Pilot are already calling for a test of strength on the floor of the House.