Chhattisgarh top leaders call on Rahul Gandhi amid friction
The meeting comes at least two months after the Chhattisgarh Congress government passed the two-and-a-half year mark on June 17 and the party in the state is waiting with baited breath for a resolution
NEW DELHI
Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and health minister TS Singhdeo met senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Tuesday, hoping to find a closure to friction that has existed between the two since late 2018, when they are believed to have agreed to a power-sharing agreement -- but the meeting remained inconclusive.
The meeting comes at least two months after the Chhattisgarh Congress government passed the two-and-a-half year mark on June 17 and the party in the state is waiting with baited breath for a resolution.
Senior Congress functionaries said that while the two Chhattisgarh leaders, along with Congress general secretary in charge of the state PL Punia, and General Secretary KC Venugopal spent more than three hours at Gandhi’s residence, no sense of finality was reached on Tuesday, and more meetings are in the offing in the next few days.
In December 2018, in the aftermath of a dominant Congress performance which saw the party win 68 of 90 seats in the state, four state leaders, Baghel, current home minister Tamradhwaj Sahu, current speaker Charan Das Mahant and Singhdeo flew to Delhi, all eyeing the Chief Minister’s post. As Mahant settled for speaker, friction between Baghel and Singhdeo meant that Sahu first emerged the frontrunner. Worried that a third leader would take the top position, Baghel and Singhdeo, alongwith Punia and Gandhi are believed to have hammered out a power sharing arrangement.
On Tuesday, Singhdeo and Baghel, who arrived in Delhi for the meeting separately, reached Gandhi’s Tughlaq Lane residence just short of 11 am, and stayed for over three hours. Functionaries in the know said that both Punia and KC Venugopal were present as well, and that they and Gandhi met Baghel and Singhdeo separately.
“Singhdeo’s meeting with Rahul Gandhi was shorter in length. The meeting with Baghel was longer and lasted over an hour. Rahul Gandhi then left for a meeting with Sonia Gandhi. Venugopal and Punia then conveyed to the leaders that the matter would be discussed further with the implication that they must stay discreet until a decision is made” a senior Congress leader said on condition of anonymity.
Emerging from the meeting, Punia, Baghel and Singhdeo maintained the public stance that nothing political was discussed at the meeting, and that it was a review of policies implemented by the Chhattisgarh government. Functionaries close to Baghel and Singhdeo however admitted that both leaders, waiting for word of what could happen, will stay on in Delhi for some time.
While Baghel and Singhdeo were once considered to be close friends in Chhattisgarh, and even called “Jai-Veeru”, after the protagonists of Hindi blockbuster Sholay, distance between the two began to grow in the run up to the assembly elections in 2018. The Baghel camp argued that as party president after the Darbha Maoist attack of 2013 had wiped out the state leadership of Vidya Charan Shukla, Nand Kumar Patel and Mahendra Karma, he had adeptly steered the party through a crisis to a position of power. Singhdeo’s aides said that the 2018 victory had much to do with the groundwork put in by him during the creation of a people’s manifesto, that proved popular and gave the party much traction.
Even as Baghel took oath as Chief Minister, Singhdeo was made health minister, but hostlity between the two has simmered, never quite boiling over. Those close to Singhdeo have argued that secretaries in his department have been changed without intimation, and he was not invited to meetings that concerned health. Baghel’s aides meanwhile have also privately spoken about moves made by Singhdeo to undermine the chief minister.
The tension has become more evident since June 17, with Singhdeo walking out of the Chhattisgarh assembly session on July 27, with Baghel present , angered by government silence on allegations that he engineered an attack on the vehicle of MLA Brihaspati Singh. Singhdeo only returned to the assembly after Singh apologized for his comments and the government gave a clear answer that the allegations were untrue.
Then, the issue of power sharing seemed to find tacit admission when assembly speaker and senior Congress leader Charan Das Mahant on August 13 said that four senior leaders – Baghel, Singh Deo, home minister Tamradhwaj Sahu and himself – played the semifinals for the CM post, and the final was in progress. “Semifinals were between four people, and only two remained. But one who wins the finals is eventually the winner. Rahul ji ( Rahul Gandhi) knows all about this formula and only Delhi can give more information about it,” Mahant said.
Over the past month, Singhdeo has been to Delhi at least three times, holding some meetings with Congress leaders. When asked about the visits, he has maintained that these were private ones to the national capital, unrelated to politics. On Monday evening, as he left for Delhi, Baghel said that this was his first visit to Delhi since the second wave of the pandemic, and that he had been called by Rahul Gandhi.
The opposition BJP has maintained that the struggle within the Congress has stalled development in the state, with people facing the brunt of policy paralysis. Asked about Tuesday’s developments, former chief minister and BJP leader Raman Singh said, “The current situation is an organizational issue of the Congress but if there was some power sharing formula after the elections, it must be executed.”
“Every political party is made of human beings and it is natural to have clashes. However what Congress is facing as political party successively in Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan and now in Chhattisgarh indicates that an amicable political formula for power sharing is missing. They let CM become a super power and then things explode,” said Sudeip Shrivastava, political commentator based in Chhattisgarh.