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Hours after he was appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh on Wednesday night, an elated T S Singh Deo, 70, told The Indian Express, “It is an honour conferred by the party high command. My priority would be to take everybody along and continue to do the best I can for Chhattisgarh.”
The development marked the Congress leadership’s open recognition, albeit belated in the eyes of some party leaders, of Singh Deo’s stature in the Chhattisgarh unit just ahead of the state Assembly election, which is barely five months away.
Singh Deo, who was a claimant for the chief ministerial post after the party stormed to power in the November 2018 Assembly polls, had been at loggerheads with CM Bhupesh Baghel since.
Singh Deo belongs to Surguja’s erstwhile ruling family, which has been associated with the Congress for several generations. Since 1952, the members of his family have been fielded by the Congress in the Assembly or Lok Sabha polls in the Surguja region, where they have always held sway.
Singh Deo has himself been a Congress activist and leader for the last 40 years. He became the party’s Ambikapur municipal president in 1983, holding the post for 10 years. He had also worked for the Congress Seva Dal.
Even as a college student, Singh Deo told The Indian Express earlier, he had worked as one of the drivers of his mother for her Assembly election campaign in 1972, when she was contesting on the Congress ticket. Her mother had been a senior Congress legislator and minister in undivided Madhya Pradesh.
Singh Deo won his first election as a Congress candidate from the Ambikapur constituency in the 2008 Assembly polls and went on to win from the seat in the 2013 and 2018 polls too.
Before the 2013 elections, Singh Deo was appointed as the Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee (CPCC) vice-president. He was then made its coordination in-charge for the polls, when he organised training camps for the party workers.
Ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress leadership appointed Singh Deo as the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly when the BJP was ruling the state for the third consecutive term under CM Raman Singh. Baghel was then the CPCC president, with the two top state Congress leaders dubbed in the party circles as “Jai Veeru” (friends in the famous movie “Sholay”) because of their closeness.
After the Congress swept the 2018 polls, four party leaders joined the chief ministerial race: Charan Das Mahant, the current Chhattisgarh Assembly Speaker, Tamradhwaj Sahu, current state Home Minister, Baghel and Singh Deo. The Congress leadership called them to Delhi and held extensive consultations with them. The then Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi also joined these meetings. Eventually, Baghel was named as the CM.
आज, AICC मुख्यालय, दिल्ली में माननीय कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष श्री @kharge जी, सभी के प्रिय नेता श्री@RahulGandhi जी, माननीय मुख्यमंत्री जी श्री @bhupeshbaghel जी, प्रदेश प्रभारी @kumari_selja जी, प्रदेश अध्यक्ष श्री @MohanMarkamPCC जी और प्रदेश के अन्य वरिष्ठ कांग्रेस नेताओं के साथ बैठक… pic.twitter.com/a8zIl28wNY
— T S Singhdeo (@TS_SinghDeo) June 28, 2023
The rivalry between Baghel and Singh Deo could be traced to an informal power-sharing deal that was then purportedly struck between them. Congress sources have maintained that the splitting of the five-year chief ministerial tenure between Baghel and Singh Deo was discussed between them and Rahul. As per this agreement, Baghel was supposed to be holding the CM’s post for the first two-and-a-half years, followed by Singh Deo’s stint.
Baghel has however repeatedly denied any such deal.
Amid the ensuing power tussle between CM Baghel and Minister Singh Deo later, their relationship turned increasingly bitter. There were multiple issues between them, which spilled on to the public domain, such as the non-sanctioning of funds under the PM Awas Yojana, mining project in Hasdeo Aranya, proposed Lemru Elephant reserve, implementation of the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) rules and reinstatement of assistant programme officers (APOs) in the Panchayat Department.
Their feud had come to a head in July last year when Singh Deo quit the charge of the crucial Panchayat and Rural Development portfolios, citing among other reasons the non-sanction of funds under the PM Awas Yojana. He had however retained Health and some other ministries.
Meanwhile, after arriving at the Raipur airport from New Delhi on Thursday morning, Singh Deo said he had never spoken of an “agreement” on the rotational CM post, claiming it was a buzz created by the media. When asked for his comment on this matter, Singh Deo told reporters, “I never discussed any 2.5 year agreement. It was a buzz in the media. However, I always got positive support from the media,” adding that “Today the high command has taken the decision. Whether they take the decision in 2.5 years or on the very first day or in future, we have to discharge our responsibility.”
Singh Deo also thanked the party for his elevation, saying “Der aaye durust aaye” (better late than never).
On the Congress’s CM face in the upcoming Assembly polls, Singh Deo said that Baghel is the CM and that as per the Congress tradition the CM and the PCC president remain at the forefront of the party’s poll campaign. “It has been a tradition in the Congress that we have contested polls in unity. Last time we did the same. One person cannot fight elections alone and ensure victory,” he said. “Last time, Baghel was at the forefront as the PCC president. This time he is the CM. We abide by the decision of the high command.”
While the Congress leadership’s decision to elevate Singh Deo to the Deputy CM’s position is aimed at ensuring that a united party unit goes into the Assembly polls, the move also makes the CM question open after the polls in the event of the party’s win.
The richest MLA in Chhattisgarh, Singh Deo owns assets worth over Rs 500 crore.
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