THE PATIENT CRUSADER

WILL FORTUNE FINALLY TURN FOR SURGUJA'S EX-MAHARAJA, T.S. SINGH DEO, WHO CONTINUES TO BE A CM HOPEFUL?

- Rahul Noronha

Tribhuvaneshwar Saran Singh Deo, 71, the deputy chief minister of Chhattisgarh, recalls the time when he used to accompany his father on hunts, sitting at water holes, waiting for the quarry to arrive. The experience, says Singh Deo-or Baba as the 'Maharaja' of the erstwhile princely state of Surguja is fondly called-instilled in him a desirable virtue: patience.

It was this patience that saw him through a rough patch when his party, the Congress, purportedly failed to honour the promise of rotational chief ministership and even the local administration stopped responding to his requests, given his then strained relationship with Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel. It was only in June this year that Singh Deo was elevated as deputy CM, as the Congress set out to put its house in order in the central Indian state.