Bhupesh Baghel, the 57-year-old president of the Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee, was announced the new chief minister of the state. He will be sworn in on Monday evening in the presence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, and other opposition leaders. Congress chief ministers, including Captain Amarinder Singh of Punjab, are expected to attend the grand celebrations that the party will organise in Bhopal, Jaipur and Raipur, in light of its heartening victories in the three states.
Celebrations are in order in Chhattisgarh as @Bhupesh_Baghel is appointed CM. We wish him the best as he forms a govt. of equality, transparency & integrity starting off with farm loan waiver for farmers as we promised. pic.twitter.com/7OqGcPi2eh
— Congress (@INCIndia) December 16, 2018
There were other probable candidates—T.S. Singh Deo, Tamradhwaj Sahu and Charan Das Mahant being some of them. However, Baghel, the indefatigable face of the party during the campaign, pipped them all to to the post. He confronted former chief minister Raman Singh head-on in the heated campaign season.
Baghel was appointed state president in December 2013, a little after the party's main leadership was wiped out in a Maoist attack. He had then alleged conspiracy by the BJP government. Every issue, from the smallest public grievance against Raman Singh to the major scams that surfaced against his administration and the cabinet colleagues, became rallying points around which Baghel mobilised the public. He even went to jail, and refused to be bailed out, after a "fake" sleaze CD expose against a senior minister. The party high command had then intervened.
Baghel was a minister in Madhya Pradesh, before Chhattisgarh was carved out. Now, Baghel will have the unenviable task of finding solutions to issues like unemployment and farmer distress. His party has promised loan waivers, and to cut power tariffs by half.
