Promoted for loyalty, not skill. How common is this?

Your HR is right, you lack soft skills and this doesn't translate to kissing anyone's ass. Rather you need to create visibility for yourself. Talk about your work and progress with your managers and stakeholders. It's simple funda jo dikhta hai vhi bikta hai. If people don't know about you and the work you did, you are always going to be passed on for any opportunity.

hahaha!! Don't be surprised brother ! Thats Indian work ethics in a nutshell!!

Answers to your questions:

1. yes these people are always there

2. switching only helps until you can get to a place where you find a truly fair boss. Which is a rare creature. All humans have biases

3. Yes there is a way. Work hard. Have an immaculate presence at work. No need to be too friendly, but be super warm.

Remember people want to work with people they can hang out with. Just be great to hang out with

Bhai this is a story as old as time, it happens, and will continue to happen - especially in old organizations with bosses who have insecurity and barely any balls

My experience:

• Ignore these people. You should focus on getting into an environment where fewer people like them are HIRED and thrive
• Playing the game: you should generally be nice to people. To your boss too. You should not agree with them on everything , but you should also not disagree with them on everything (that's never helpful). Pick your battles, keep your points in a positive way, and build rapport that takes your team ahead.

Most likely, in the right environment, people have manageable egos and will listen to you and appreciate you for saying a counter view point.

Here's how I navigated exact same situation (I resigned immediately after being promoted though)

Answers:

1 - Sideline the sideliner (learn to play else you'll be played, harsh but true). My work was always better than the guy who buttered my manager. To counter this I made my self even more visible by looping my manager's manager while I accomplished hard tasks.

2 - This situation can be anywhere, imagine going to a new place and finding the same thing (Few Indian bosses love being buttered so can't help). Start applying again early if you find this.

3 - Yes, I did it. Be extraordinary at work (I got a 5 star rating at work by the same manager who didn't like me), talk less, make yourself visible by your work. Take up complex work and loop people higher up, as I said sideline the sideliners.

Summary : Pick/do work within a team that no one can easily do apart from your BAU - accomplish that - show the business impact - and loop in folks higher up

There's actually a kickass way to Deal with this but requires you to have another job offer in hand.

And this is what I would do.

1. Jot down in detail all my achievements and quantify in terms of metrics you are evaluated on.
2. Do the same for Rajesh (be truthful and justhere)
3. Set up a skip level one on one connect on the pretext of career plans. Or maybe with HR instead of skip. (Not sure about the hierarchy in your role).
4. Begin with the regular BS conversation on feedbacks, criticism etc etc. Then when the tone is set that this is a smooth sailing conversation, bring up the topic of you being overlooked for TL role.
5. They will give some bulshit reasoning. Patiently listen until they end and give a 10s pause after that. Next pull out the doc you have created and very respectfully say that you do not agree with anything that's been said and present the supporting evidence. Explain it.
6. Once you are done, highlight that the only difference between you and rajesh was the fact that he bought home made biryani. "If that is what it takes to be highlighted in the team, I would have done that long back. It's just I am not a good cook and you wouldn't like the Biryani I make".
7. Enjoy the look on his face when he takes offense and obviously he will blurt out some nonsense.
8. Give your 10s pause once more and pull out your resignation letter and hand it over. "Will mail this as well". Itna bolke conclude with that's all I had.

This is what I would do, most might not agree and may raise good points but considering the end goal was for me to get revenge and put down the manager I would have done a fine job.

Sad Welcome to the corporate world.

Yes I would say, the company I work for is not MNC nor in tech, but there is a similar incident in my company too, where one of the head doesn't know about anything at all last to last month 3 out of 6 people resigned because he knew nothing but would always take credit for everyones work if it was good. He is from a reputed college and a nice man but not even close to being a nice employee except he keeps our founders a$$ wet all the time.

have come across the same behavior. Be best friends with him, this is the only solution.

It all boils down to trust. You may try to introspect if there is the trust factor missing between your boss and you and what could be the reasons for that.