A network device may be configured with a primary control element and a second control element. Both the primary and secondary control elements may receive information from one or more forwarding elements. Both the primary and secondary control elements may send control information to the forwarding element. The control information from the secondary control element, however, may be discarded either at the forwarding element or at a blocking agent between the secondary control element and the forwarding element. In this manner, the secondary control element may be synchronized with the primary control element in a stateless manner. If a failure condition is detected, control plane operations may be performed using the secondary control element. As a result, the network device may become fault tolerant, and experience reduced amounts of down time due to failure of one or more elements within the network device.