Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to announce on Friday the name of the new chief minister of
Chhattisgarh, where the party won 68 of the 90 assembly seats, trouncing the BJP which has been in office for the past 15 years.
Sources in the Pradesh Congress Committee said the four frontrunners for the post were in Raipur on Thursday evening, and were given to understand that the chief ministership of the relatively small state will be taken up only after Rahul Gandhi has taken the decision on who will get the top job in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The names being mentioned for the top job in Raipur are Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhupesh Baghel, leader of the opposition in the dissolved Vidhan Sabha T.S. Singh Deo, the lone Congress member of Parliament from the state Tamradhwaj Sahu and senior Congress leader Charan Das Mahant. Though there is no rift among the party leaders in Chhattisgarh, choosing a chief minister from among the four leaders can be a tough task for the Congress president.
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Party officials as well as workers have been saying that it was the united leadership of the Congress that ensured fairness in ticket distribution that eventually led to the rout of the BJP that was counting on a fourth term for Raman Singh who resigned from office taking full responsibility for the debacle. Singh had emphatically absolved the party high command, including party president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of any blame for the party's defeat.
What has now become clear is that the Congress president will be the one taking the decision on who will head these states in the crucial Hindi heartland which were captured from the BJP that portrayed itself as invincible, with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections of 2019.
In Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, the old leadership of the area was completely wiped out by Maoists. This has resulted in Rahul Gandhi not finding it difficult to balance the old and the young, or more importantly, choosing either the old or the young. The fact that the party was out of power for 15 years also made sure that there has been no rivalry, and the party leadership in the state were united in their efforts to hound the government relentlessly ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre.
Besides, there were slogans raised at Rajiv Bhawan by the newly-elected MLAs for all the four contenders for the post, indicating that all of them enjoy support of the party leaders.
Mallikarjun Kharge, the party observer, had met all of them individually to obtain their views, and according to sources, conveyed his findings to the party president. Clearly, it is not going to be easy for Rahul Gandhi.