Chhattisgarh will see its seven remaining seats out of a total 11 go to the polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 7. In these constituencies, nationalism as a narrative has been dominant in these areas, but both the key players — BJP and Congress — have attempted to add more issues in the mix.
While the BJP has tried to focus on topics like the Ram Temple, abrogation of Article 370 and India’s “relative rise” globally with hyper-local issues like corruption allegations against the previous Congress government and the purported success of its schemes like Mahtari Vandan Yojana, the Congress hopes to improve its patchy electoral record in Lok Sabha elections with schemes like providing ₹1 lakh annually for eligible families and a social justice plank that the party is attempting elsewhere in the country.
Seats like Bilaspur, Durg, Surguja and Raigarh have been with the BJP for the past couple of decades.
Raigarh, a constituency reserved for tribals, is where BJP’s Radeshyam Rathia is taking on Menaka Devi Singh of the Congress. Ms. Singh comes from the Sarangarh royal family and her late father Nareshchandra Singh was a noted figure in undivided Madhya Pradesh, even serving as the Chief Minister.
This election, however, is drawing attention for reasons beyond the candidates themselves. First, Raigarh has been represented four times by current Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai of the BJP in the past.
Apart from its billing as the “CM’s constituency”, O.P. Choudhary, a powerful Minister in the Sai cabinet, also hails from Raigarh as does Devendra Pratap Singh, a member of the erstwhile Raigarh State royal family and who was recently elected to the Rajya Sabha as BJP nominee. The party is also confident about Raigarh and Surguja (another reserved constituency for STs) due to its performance in last year’s Assembly polls where it swept the Surguja region, winning all 14 seats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a public meeting in Surguja last month in which he reiterated his government’s “commitment to tribal welfare”.
From an electoral record point of view, Janjgir-Champa, a constituency reserved for the Scheduled Castes, is on another extreme. Here, the Congress won all the Assembly segments in last year’s State elections and has now fielded former Minister Shiv Kumar Dahariya against BJP’s Kamlesh Jangde. Although the BJP has been consistently winning this seat since 2004, the Congress feels that its social justice plank might provide it an opening here.
In neighbouring Korba, sitting MP Jyotsna Mahant has been renominated by the Congress. Observers, however, believe that by fielding Saroj Pandey, a senior State leader from the BJP, the party has given itself a better chance compared to the last elections. And while Korba is the pocket borough of Charan Das Mahant, Ms. Mahant’s husband and the Leader of Opposition in the Chhattisgarh Assembly, the MP herself is facing some questions due to her limited visits to the constituency in the past five years, say sources on the ground.
Major urban pockets such as capital Raipur, Bilaspur and Durg, where the BJP has traditionally done well and almost swept the Assembly polls are also going to elections in this phase. It is in Raipur that Brijmohan Agrawal, State Minister and a veteran with around three decades of experience in the State Assembly, is contesting a parliamentary election for the first time and is up against Vikas Upadhyay, a former one-time MLA.
Former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel — who was focusing on Rajnandgaon where he is the candidate and where polling was held in the second phase — has now been more active in other seats. Despite him contesting from a different seat, his shadow looms large in his home turf of Durg where the BJP has fielded sitting MP Vijay Baghel — who lost to his relative, former CM Mr. Baghel from Patan Assembly segment last November — and is said to be ahead of Rajendra Sahu, his opponent from the Congress.
In Bilaspur, the BJP has nominated Tokhan Sahu as their candidate from this place, while Devendra Yadav is the candidate from the Congress, but the former is reliant on the face of Mr. Modi to maintain its winning record.
