The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) winning streak continued in Chhattisgarh on Friday with the party wining 10 of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the State leaving the Congress with yet another rout.
The BJP retained almost all the seats it won in 2009 except Durg where its candidate, Saroj Pande, lost by over 15,000 votes to the Congress’s Tamradhwaj Sahu.
Senior Congress leader Charandas Mahant could not retain the Korba Lok Sabha seat and lost to BJP’s Bansilal Mahato by a margin of around 5,000 votes.
However, the biggest shock to the Congress came from Mahasamund Lok Sabha seat where the former Chief Minister and senior leader Ajit Jogi was defeated by BJP’s Chandu Lal Sahu by a slender margin of 1,565 votes. Mr. Jogi refused to accept defeat and has asked for recounting of votes.
“Until 5 p.m., I was in the lead and now they are saying that I am losing. I have written to the Election Commission for recounting of votes and I have also appealed them to stop the announcement of Mahasamund seat until the recounting is done,” Mr. Jogi told journalists.
Apart from Mr. Jogi and Mr. Mahant, Congress’s Karuna Shukla lost to BJP’s Lakhan Lal Sahu from Bilaspur.
On the other hand, the BJP managed to retain the Bastar Lok Sabha seat with its candidate, Dinesh Kashyap, defeating Congress’s Deepak Karma by 1,24,359 votes.
The Maoist-sensitive constituency was in the news especially after the Aam Adami Party (AAP) decided to field tribal activist and teacher Soni Sori from the seat.
But Ms. Sori could garner only 16,903 votes and stood fourth.
Ms. Sori’s cousin and Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate, Vimala Sori, polled 33,883 votes and came third after the Congress’s candidate.
BJP’s Vikram Usendi defeated Congress’s Fulodevi Netam by over 35,000 votes in Kanker.
In Sarguja, BJP’s Kamalbhan Marabi defeated Congress’s Ram Dev Ram and in Raipur, BJP’s Ramesh Bais defeated Satyanarayan Sharma of the Congress.
Chief Minister Raman Singh’s son, Abhishek Singh, managed to win his debut election from Rajnandgaon.
Mr. Raman Singh congratulated Narendra Modi for “a historic win” and said the BJP government at the Centre would help in “fast growth” of the State
