Chhattisgarh: Congress on Saturday appointed Charan Das Mahant Leader of the Opposition in Chhattisgarh and decided to continue with Lok Sabha MP Deepak Baij as state chief despite the debacle in the recently concluded assembly elections.
Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal said that the party President Mallikarjun Kharge has approved the proposal of the appointment of both leaders. "Congress President has approved the proposal of the appointment of Shri Charan Das Mahant as the CLP Leader of Chhattisgarh, with immediate effect. Congress President has also approved the proposal to continue Shri Deepak Baij as the President of Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee," the statement reads.
Notably, of the 90 assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh, the BJP bagged 54 while the Congress won 35. The polling in the state was held in two phases, with the first on November 7 featuring 223 candidates and the second seeing 958 candidates put their electoral fates to the test on November 17.
Who is Charan Das Mahant?
Charan Das Mahant, hailing from the Other Backward Classes, is widely recognized as a neutral figure with broad acceptance among different factions within the party in the state. He won his first Lok Sabha election in 1998. In 2009, he became the sole Congress Member of Parliament from Chhattisgarh.
After entering the political arena, Mahant ascended to the position of a minister in Arjun Singh's Madhya Pradesh government in 1988, marking his political trajectory. He further advanced to roles of significance, serving as the Home Minister and later assuming the portfolio of Excise and Public Relations Minister in Digvijaya Singh's state government in 1993.
In 1998, he secured his first Lok Sabha ticket from the Janjgir constituency, marking his entry into the Parliament. During the UPA's second term in power in 2009, he served as the Union Minister of State for Agriculture in the Manmohan Singh government.
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