Rajasthan polls 2018: Congress ends 46-year tradition by fielding Sachin Pilot from Tonk

The Congress decision to field Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot, 41, from Tonk in the December 7 assembly election has ended the party’s 46-year practice of nominating a Muslim candidate in the constituency. Pilot, who visited a Devnarayan temple in Tonk district as a child with his father Rajesh Pilot and took his sons Aaran and Vehaan there in September, will be contesting his first assembly election.

Why Tonk

Pilot was elected to the Lok Sabha from Dausa in 2004 and Ajmer in 2009, losing Ajmer in 2014 to the BJP’s Sanwar Lal Jat; the Congress won it back in a 2017 by-election through Raghu Sharma. Tonk lies between those two constituencies. Tonk has about 222,000 voters, of whom 40-50,000 are Muslim; this may be why the Congress has fielded a Muslim there since 1972. The BJP fielded Mahavir Prasad Jain from 1980 and switched to Ajit Singh Mehta, the sitting MLA, in 2013; Mehta is its candidate again. Other groups include roughly 20-30,000 Gujjars, about 35,000 SC voters and some 15,000 Malis. Pilot is a Gujjar, and SCs, particularly Bairwas, have traditionally backed the Congress.

The Saidis, one of Tonk’s leading Muslim families, are connected to Pilot: patriarch Dr Ajmal Saidi once shared a hostel room with Dr Farooq Abdullah, Pilot’s father-in-law. His son Saud Saidi, district Congress president for seven years from 2002, said the family had wanted Pilot to contest from Tonk, believing a big leader would bring development.

Unease and criticism

Former MLA Zakiya, who contested on a Congress ticket six times and won in 1985, 1998 and 2008, told reporters she felt “a lot of anxiety” and warned of repercussions if the minority’s right was taken away, without saying whether she would back Pilot. There were scattered protests by Muslims in Tonk on Friday.

Pilot said the party had chosen Tonk for him. He said contesting the assembly polls was the party’s instruction. BJP MLA Mehta called him an outsider, and BJP state in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna said Pilot kept changing seats from Dausa to Ajmer to Tonk.

What happened next

The Congress won 99 of the 199 seats that voted on 7 December 2018 and Ashok Gehlot became Chief Minister.

See also: Constituencies

Originally published on 17 November 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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