With 143 in fray, battlelines drawn for 1st phase polling in Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh assembly election, Chhattisgarh first phase polling,BJP, Raman singh Chhattisgarh news.

With 143 in fray, battlelines drawn for 1st phase polling in Chhattisgarh.

RAIPUR: The battle lines for the first phase of polling in Chhattisgarh were clearly drawn on Monday with 143 candidates, including chief minister, Dr Raman Singh, remaining in fray after 29 withdrawals.

Though it's going to be a straight contests between the ruling BJP and Congress on all of the 18 seats that go to polls on November 11, with other candidates more or less inconsequential, a few rebels threaten to upset the apple carts of the party nominees in a few constituencies. Party rebels threaten both the BJP and the Congress on a few seats.

The stakes are particularly high for the BJP, as it had won 15 of these 18 seats in the last polls, having lost Mohla-Manpur, Konta and Khujji. With 10 years of anti-incumbency and the post Darbha killings sympathy existing for the Congress in some constituencies, it's surely not going to be an easy task for the BJP to wrest all the seats and maintain its 2008 tally.

The BJP has tried hard to beat the anti-incumbency against some of it's sitting MLAs by replacing four of them,

Ramji Bharti (Dongargarh),

Brahmanand (Bhanupratapur),

Sumitra Markole (Kanker) and

Kheduram Sahu (Dongargaon).

The party has replaced them with fresh faces,

Sarojani Banjare,

Satish Lathiya,

Sanjey Kadopi and

Dinesh Gandhi respectively.

It has however fielded three sitting ministers, Lata Usendi (Kondagaon (ST)), Kedar Kashyap (Narainpur (ST)) and Vikram Usendi (Antagarh (ST)).

A keen contest seems to be offing in chief minister's home constituency, Rajanandgaon where he taken on Alka Mudliyar, wife of the slain Congress leader and former MLA, Udai Mudliyar. Incidentally this constituency has the dubious history of never repeating a candidate by DrRaman Singh claims that he would beat the trend and create a record of sorts.

Rebellion - While dissidence plagues both the parties, the BJP has managed to control it in much better fashion than the Congress. With the BJP succeeding in pacifying rebels in Jamuna Majhi (Konta), Dhiraj Netam (Kanker), Bhojraj Nag (Antagarh) and Chandramani Baghel (Keshkal), it still has three rebels in Jagdalpur (Rajaram Todem), Antagarh (Somnath Uike), and Khujji (Rajinder Pal Singh Bhatia).

For the Congress, the rebels pose a problem Bijapur (Nina Rawativa) Chitrkoot (Shanker Ram Thakur), Kondagaon (Shankar Sodi), and Khairagarh (Rohit Kumar Mohobia).

Incidentally, as compared to 2008, there are 2 less candidates in fray in the ensuing polls. Rajnandgaon has the highest number of candidates with 14 sin fray. A total of 242 nominations were filed and 143 now remain in fray.

source:timesofindia

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