On July 16, with two days to go for legislators across India to vote to elect the country’s first tribal president, T S Singh Deo, a senior Congress leader who has championed the cause of tribals throughout his political career, quit one of his ministerial portfolios.
The leadership tussle between Singh Deo and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has simmered since Congress won a massive mandate in the state in December 2018.
Singh Deo led the party during its difficult years in Opposition in the state and helped draft the party manifesto for the 2018 polls.
However, the Congress central leadership handpicked Baghel after most of the newly elected legislators supported his candidature.
According to the Singh Deo camp, there was a pact that Baghel would make way for Singh Deo after completing half of the five-year term. That never came to pass when the time came in mid-2021.
In that context, Singh Deo asking to be relieved as the state’s panchayat and rural development minister — one of the five portfolios he held along with health and family welfare, medical education, 20-point programme implementation and commercial tax — wouldn’t have been much of a shock for the party high command.
What has troubled the Congress central leadership are the inconvenient questions that Singh Deo’s rebellion has flagged, which, if not resolved, could hurt the Congress in the Assembly elections in the state that are 16 months away.
Insiders say Singh Deo is too rooted in the Congress ideology to ever join the BJP. But in April, Singh Deo said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) contacted him. “Five generations of my family have been in Congress. I am not leaving the party. It is difficult for me to even think beyond Congress,” he said.
But Congress sources also say Singh Deo has picked an opportune moment to escalate his differences with Baghel. However, his protest isn’t merely one of unfulfilled personal ambition.
Instead, it goes to the heart of the ideological confusion within the Congress.
In the nearly four years he has been in the saddle in Raipur, Baghel has proved to be an excellent political manager. A Kurmi OBC himself, Baghel has had the support of the majority of Congress’ 70 MLAs (in a 90-member Assembly).
He has also endeared himself to the party leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, with the Chhattisgarh government launching welfare schemes for farmers close to the top Congress leader’s heart.
Baghel has followed Rahul’s lead in attacking the RSS, even comparing the organisation with the Maoists and criticising it for turning Lord Ram into a “Rambo-like” personality. At the same time, he has showcased the soft-Hindutva of the Congress.
The Baghel government has launched schemes to buy cow urine and dung from farmers. It has taken up projects to commemorate the time Lord Ram spent in the state with the Ram Van Gaman Path’s inauguration and a temple dedicated to Ram’s mother, Kaushalya.
She, according to legend, was from present-day Chhattisgarh. Such efforts have even earned Baghel praise from the RSS in the state and blunted former CM Raman Singh’s attacks.
However, Singh Deo’s letter to Baghel, which the former made public, pointed out that the state government has ignored key welfare schemes. Singh Deo also opposed the state government’s decision to allow coal mining in the Hasdeo forest, exhorting tribals to fight unitedly against it.
In March, the state government gave its go-ahead for coal mining in an area of 1,136 hectares under the second phase of the Parsa East-Kete Basan (PEKB) coal block. When asked about the issue during an interaction with students at the University of Cambridge in May, Rahul said: “I have a problem with the decision myself.” The government then halted the project.
In his latest missive, Singh Deo castigated Baghel for the government failing to construct homes for the homeless under the PM Awas Yojana. He complained eight lakh homes were to be built, but his department has not received any budgetary allocations.
He said he was not being kept in the loop about the ministry by bureaucrats. Earlier, Singh Deo had disagreed with Baghel’s decision to allow private sector partnership in primary healthcare.
The opinion about Baghel versus Singh Deo’s tussle is divided within the party.
A section lauds Baghel’s pragmatism in dulling the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva push in Chhattisgarh and points to his OBC identity as an advantage for the party in the Hindi heartland.
However, others point out that Baghel’s governance model neither conforms to Congress’s ideological tenets nor its 2018 manifesto. They complain ignoring tribal interests and aspirations, particularly in a tribal-dominated state like Chhattisgarh, would further alienate the party from them across the country at a time when the BJP has made inroads among them.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Baghel will be in New Delhi to discuss the latest crisis with the party’s top leadership.
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