Magic runs in Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's genes.
The magician's son can pull out political rabbits in a jiffy, stunning his political adversaries.
Just when his election as Congress president -- the first Congressperson outside the Gandhi-Nehru family to head the party since 1998 -- appeared a near certainty, his MLA loyalists moved to resign en masse from the Rajasthan assembly on Sunday.
The Gehlot gambit was obvious -- he does not want to be replaced in Jaipur by Sonia-Rahul-Priyanka Gandhi's nominee Sachin Pilot, who he is clearly allergic to.
Dominic Xavier wonders how a rebel leader -- and clearly, Gehlot is one after Sunday's rebellion by his MLA supporters, no matter his assertions to the high command's emissaries that he has no links to the mutiny -- can now lead the national party which so badly needs the adhesive of unity and tender care.
