BJP, Cong to fight for 3 Chhattisgarh seats on Friday; ex-CM Baghel eyes saffron turf
Rajnandgaon, once represented by BJP stalwart and former chief minister Raman Singh, is among the key constituencies whose outcome will be keenly watched
The second phase of the Lok Sabha polls on Friday (April 26) will witness former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel facing off against outgoing BJP MP Santosh Pandey in the Rajnandgaon constituency of the state.
Rajnandgaon, once represented in the Lok Sabha by BJP stalwart and former chief minister Raman Singh, is among the key constituencies whose outcome will be keenly watched.
Besides Rajnandgaon, voting will also take place in the Mahasamund and Kanker Lok Sabha seats of Chhattisgarh.
Can Baghel overcome challenges?
With the BJP confident of sweeping the 11 Lok Sabha seats of Chhattisgarh after taking office in Assembly elections, Baghel, now an MLA, will not find the going easy in the politically bi-polar state despite his stature.
Baghel, who is not a Rajnandgaon native (his ancestral village falls in the adjoining Durg constituency), faces a stiff challenge from incumbent MP and BJP candidate Santosh Pandey.
It was also under his leadership that the Congress suffered an unexpected rout in the Chhattisgarh assembly polls last year. The shock defeat was attributed to factors, including Baghel’s overconfidence, a decisive shift of tribal voters to the BJP owing the Baghel government’s failure in curbing rampant mining across the state’s forests as well as the sharp polarisation kicked up by the BJP over the plank of alleged forced religious conversion of Hindu forest dwellers to Christianity and the Congress’s inability to consolidate support of the huge OBC electorate of the state despite Baghel being a prominent OBC face and his party’s push for a caste census.
The Congress is, however, hopeful of wresting the Rajnandgaon seat, which it has only won once – in a 2007 bypoll – since in the past 25 years riding on Baghel’s still considerable popularity and the fact that the BJP has, once again, fielded an upper caste candidate in the constituency that has a strong concentration of backward caste communities.
Baghel, who has ruled the state for five years, is also among the few top Congress leaders who did not say ‘no’ when he was asked to plunge into the parliamentary battle. A win by Baghel will be seen as a major political upset.
BJP’s aggressive campaign
Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have campaigned for the BJP – and are expected to return to the state for the third and final round of polling for the seven Lok Sabha seats next month.
Voting was conducted amid high security in the restive Bastar constituency on April 19.
In Kanker Lok Sabha seat, Bhojraj Nag of the BJP is taking on Biren Thakur of the Congress, who had lost the polls in 2019. The main contest in Mahasamund is between Roop Kumari Chaudhary of the BJP and Tamradhwaj Sahu of the Congress.
The BJP has unleashed an aggressive campaign and is seeking votes in the name of Modi and his “guarantees”. It says victory for the BJP will help Modi to rule India for another five years.
BJP leaders accuse the Congress of corruption and more and have vowed to crush Maoism in the state within the next two years.
The BJP is hoping that its resounding victory in the December assembly polls was a sign of the party’s ascendant popularity in the state. With Modi still hugely popular here and the BJP’s Hindutva narrative coupled with the party’s cacophony over the Ayodhya Ram Temple inauguration finding resonance among Chhattisgarh voters, the saffron party believes that the Congress’s decision to field its satraps in the Lok Sabha polls will have no adverse impact on the BJP’s victory prospects.
The Congress, helped in part by its leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, is harping on the failures of the Modi government with particular emphasis on the Electoral Bonds scheme whose details now stand exposed.
Congress’ problems
Political observers admit that the Congress is on the backfoot after losing power in Chhattisgarh which the party was supremely confident of retaining when Assembly elections took place late last year.
But the BJP, in a major upset, won 54 of the 90 Assembly seats, returning to power in a state it had ruled for 15 long years until the Congress as stunningly ousted it in 2018.
