Raipur: Amid increasing distance between Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and state minister T S Singh Deo, both separately meet party high command leaders in the capital on Sunday. This marks the first Delhi visit for Baghel since Singh Deo's resignation as Panchayat Minister. Speaking to the media before departing, the CM said on Saturday, "There is a programme of meeting my colleagues from Himachal Pradesh. There can also be a meeting with senior party leaders".
Baghel is expected to apprise party top brass regarding the current political situation in Chhattisgarh, a party leader said. Singh Deo, meanwhile, flew on a regular flight on Saturday evening from Bhopal. Notably, the latter had also gone to Delhi on July 18, after voting for the Presidential polls. At the time, however, he had described the visit as predetermined.
On July 16, Singh Deo, who is locked in a turf war with Baghel, resigned from his post of the minister of panchayat and rural development, hinting that he was sidelined in the state government. The development triggered a fresh row in the ruling party.
Also read: Haven't received minister T S Singh Deo's resignation from panchayat dept: Chhattisgarh CM Baghel
Singh Deo, however, remains the minister for health and family welfare, medical education, twenty-point implementation and commercial tax (GST) departments. The sudden development, which has come over a year ahead of the state Assembly elections, is being seen as bitter fallout of an old political rivalry between Baghel and Singh Deo, who was seeking the chief minister's post under a purported power-sharing agreement.
In a four-page resignation letter to the chief minister, Singh Deo cited various reasons and claimed that he was unable to fulfil the targets set for the rural development department as per the Jan Ghoshna Patra (poll manifesto), given the "current scenario".
In June last year, the differences between Baghel and Singh Deo had flared up shortly after the former completed half his tenure in the office. A fresh point of contention between the chief minister and Singh Deo seems to be the coal mine projects in the Hasdeo Arand forest area of Surguja district. On Thursday, Baghel handed over the panchayat and rural development portfolio to senior minister Ravindra Choubey.
