Chattisgarh has a new deputy CM; will Congress be able to quell a rebellion?

In a sign of an immediate thaw, the Congress president announced the appointment of T.S. Singh Deo as the Deputy CM of Chhattisgarh.

Deo has been quite vocal with his demand that he be given some big responsibility, and this new role in the run-up to the elections is a sign that Congress doesn’t want a repeat of what happened in MP, Rajasthan, MP, and Chhattisgarh.

Chhattisgarh is a state where the party is staring at brighter poll prospects with a stronger position at the ground level and has successfully managed to check factionalism. The Congress high command is taking no chances and has learned lessons from previous factional strife in Rajasthan and MP, which toppled the MP Congress government and almost lost Rajasthan.

Haryana is another state where faction struggles have become a headache for the party, and this model of Chhattisgarh is what the party aims to implement in all other states to satisfy different factions. But whether it would manage to quell an internal rebellion long enough remains to be seen.