Chhattisgarh CM : Will Tamradwaj Sahu emerge as the dark horse?

RAIPUR: Lone Congress Member of Parliament from Chhattisgarh Tamradwaj Sahu, a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), is being seen as a potential OBC leader whom the party might draft for a bigger role in state politics as the Congress wrested power from the BJP after a span of 15 years.
Low profile and non-controversial, Tamradwaj Sahu gradually began rising within the party as elections came closer when the opposition Congress, without projecting anyone as its chief ministerial candidate for Chhattisgarh elections, decided to project a collective leadership to take the BJP head-on in the elections.Sahu was first made the president of Congress National OBC cell and soon he was elevated as a member of the CWC.
State Congress president Bhupesh Baghel belongs to a powerful OBC Kurmi community and Congress giving prominence to other prominent OBC Sahu community leader Tamradwaj Sahu was considered as an effort to woo both the Kurmi and Sahu communities who constitute about 36% of the state’s population. The political importance of Sahu Community in state politics can be gauged from the fact that the ruling BJP had fielded 14 Sahu candidates, while the Congress had nominated nine to contest the assembly elections.
It was at the last moment that the Congress high command asked Tamradwaj Sahu to contest for Durg (Rural) constituency, which also falls in Durg Lok sabha constituency which he had won by defeating BJP’s prominent leader Saroj Pandey in 2014. Earlier, Congress had named another OBC leader Pratima Chandrakar, who belongs to Kurmi community, for Durg (Rural) seat but later changed the candidate—apparently to send a message to community that he could be drafted for a bigger role in state politics.
While senior Congress leaders have better managed their factional politics this time, an audio clip having a purported conservation of a senior leader went viral suggesting that Tamradwaj Sahu would be the suitable candidate to take on chief minister Raman Singh in the latter’s home constituency of Rajnandgaon. Such a statement from a potential chief ministership aspirant and subsequent Sahu’s entry into the fray and OBC equations later triggered speculation that Sahu is among the leaders who can be drafted for a leadership role.
Studied up to higher secondary, 69-year-old soft-spoken Congress leader had played a major role in organising the community as president of Sahu Samaj state unit. A farmer by profession, he began his political journey as a sarpanch and has been a member of legislative assembly thrice and is not known for taking aggressive stand.