RAIPUR: The Congress which returned to power in Chhattisgarh with the thumping majority winning 68 out of the 90 Assembly seats in December 2018, now apparently acts tough against the state ministers who miserably failed to secure the favourable results that they were entrusted with for the party during the Lok Sabha elections.
All 11 ministers of Bhupesh Baghel cabinet are now given districts and region other than their own they are said to be representing politically and having substantial influence among the masses.
“The Congress it seems is yet to overcome the blow it sustained in the general elections when they could barely manage to get 2 out of the 11 parliamentary seats. The ministers are evidently made to realise they didn't do a good job. The party continues to experiment to ensure their elected representatives shouldn’t remain complacent and do not further lose the ground gained by it during the Assembly polls”, said the political analyst Ashok Tomar.
Though the party insiders also claimed that the chief minister Baghel himself was keen to keep the ministers away from their home districts so that they remain unswayed and work more objectively for the larger cause of the masses without being prevailed upon by the local supporters.
The chief minister keeping an eye on the Lok Sabha polls had on February 5 allotted the home districts and constituencies to his cabinet colleagues but barring two all miserably failed to live up to the party’s expectations. The distribution was then done in a way that each minister along with the regional MLAs can take the responsibility of one Lok Sabha constituency each. But the party could win just two seats of Korba and Bastar.
Earlier this month during the party's post-poll analysis and introspection, the Congress MLAs were obliquely held accountable for the party’s poor show in LS polls and consequently the aspirations nurtured by as many as 52 legislators who were eyeing the plum posts in the government-owned corporations and boards collapsed.
None of the MLAs would now be considered for the 126 posts in the state corporations and boards beside the 200-odd posts of various government committees.