JAIPUR: “She might have spoken to Sachin Tendulkar,” said former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot on Friday while refuting BJP MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s claim that she spoke to him over phone about joining the BJP.
Pilot reached Delhi on Friday night and is expected to meet Priyanka Gandhi on Sunday.
Amid reports of Pilot’s discontentment with the Congress central leadership, Joshi had told a news channel that she has urged Pilot to switch over to the saffron party.
“I heard her claim that she spoke to Sachin.
She might have spoken to Sachin Tendulkar.
She doesn’t have the guts to speak to me,” Pilot told reporters during a Congress protest held in Jaipur against fuel price hike.
Speculations over Pilot switching over to the BJP were rife when Jyotiraditya Scindia joined the saffron party in March last year and later when he revolted against chief minister Ashok Gehlot in July.
Now, Jitin Prasada joining BJP has once again led to speculations over Pilot’s motives.
While he voiced displeasure against an AICC committee sitting over his demands for 10 months, in refuting Joshi’s claim, Pilot has once again tried to put an end to such speculations.
Staging dharna outside a petrol filling station in the city, Pilot targeted the BJP-led government at the Centre over inflation and hike in fuel prices.
“Economic slowdown, inflation and unemployment have hit the country hard during the Coronavirus pandemic.
People have lost jobs and labourers are not getting wages,” he said.
“It is sad that lakhs of people died, dead bodies were thrown in rivers and every family struggled to survive the virus onslaught.
And, in such a situation, the government is not taking any step to control inflation and instead, increasing fuel prices,” he added.
The former deputy CM said, “Just as the prime minister had to roll back his decision on vaccination and announce free inoculation for all under pressure from the Congress, we will be successful in mounting pressure on the Centre over inflation and fuel price hikes too,” said the former deputy CM.
Earlier in the day, Pilot reached Bhandna village in Dausa to pay tributes to his father and former Union minister Rajesh Pilot on his 21st death anniversary.
MLA GR Khatana and local Congress leaders were with him in Dausa.
Chief minister Ashok Gehlot and PCC chief and school education minister Govind Singh Dotasra paid tributes to Rajesh Pilot on Twitter.
Dotasra too will be in Delhi on Saturday, while going to Uttrakhand to condole the demise of AICC general secretary and Manglaur MLA Qazi Nizamuddin’s mother.