For the last three decades, Rajasthan politics has followed a template in which the incumbent gets voted out in every Assembly election. But this time is going to be different, Congress Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot – who has himself been voted out twice – says.
“We are winning another term. People have figured it out, and governments that listen to them, provide them relief, succour and support, get re-elected. We have done that in the last five years, and the voters recognise that,” Mr. Gehlot says, settling in for an exclusive interview well past midnight, but by no means his last engagement of Sunday. There are people waiting, advisers mill around to plan the next day, and there were phone calls to be returned. “It will be 2 a.m. before he could sleep,” says an aide. And the next day begins by 7 a.m.
At 72, Mr. Gehlot is making the boldest bid of his career, to redraw the deeply etched pattern of politics in Rajasthan where two national parties have alternated in power every five years. Addressing four or five rallies a day, covering up to 800 km some days, he is trying to reach as far and wide as possible as campaigning peaks ahead of polling scheduled for November 25.
