Raipur: The stars are missing in action on the poll trail in Chhattisgarh. The campaigning for Lok Sabha elections are on, but several star campaigners, especially of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are conspicuous by their absence which witnessed frenetic activity in the run-up to the assembly polls late last year.
The name of three-time chief minister and senior BJP leader Dr Raman Singh is in the BJP’s list of star campaigners, but this time he is yet to address a huge public gathering like what he did ahead of the November 2018 Legislative Assembly elections in the central Indian state. People familiar with the matter said some candidates are yet to seek his presence. Till the last Assembly polls, Singh was one of the most sought-after campaigners of the party in Chhattisgarh.
Singh himself could have resisted any bid to make him campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. One of the reasons is Singh has to maintain a silence on Dr Puneet Gupta, his son-in-law who continues to evade the Chhattisgarh police almost two weeks since he was expected to present himself before them.
Mr Gupta has allegedly committed gross financial irregularities during his tenure as the superintendent of Dau Kalyan Singh Post-Graduate Institute & Research Centre, Raipur. Meanwhile, Union Minister for Steel and four-time MP Vishnudeo Sai (Raigarh) and eigh–time MP Ramesh Bais (Raipur) are maintaining a low profile ever since they were denied party tickets to contest the Lok Sabha polls commencing this week.
Bais is confining himself to party affairs and not preferring to campaign outside. In the BJP camp, senior leaders like Brajmohan Agrawal is campaigning for Pramod Dubey, his aide contesting on party’s ticket from the Raipur Lok Sabha seat.
Ahead of the Assembly polls, Agrawal had campaigned for several other candidates, but this time he is missing the heat of campaigning, as he is not needed by the party candidates any longer, as an insider put it.
Although Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das had addressed several public meetings ahead of the year-end polls in Chhattisgarh, he had to cancel three public meetings scheduled in the Congress-ruled state on Monday, just ahead of the first phase of elections on April 11.
Will fresh faces help BJP?
Taking lessons from its crushing defeat in the 2018 Assembly elections, the BJP has presented a bold plan by deciding not to grant tickets to 15 MLAs who had won the state elections in 2013. It also denied tickets to 53 candidates who lost in the same elections and also to sitting MPs.
The BJP feels fresh faces and absence of party stalwarts in the electoral battle field will help it to regain its lost glory and beat anti-incumbency against the party this time. To lure voters, the party is instead flashing its trump card of national security following the recent retaliatory strikes in Pakistan.
Altogether, BJP has served tickets to fresh faces to beat anti-incumbency against the party.
Challenge in Naxal zone
During the first phase of the Lok Sabha poll in Chhattisgarh, voting will take place only in the Naxal-infested Basatar Lok Sabha seat.
Generally, polling in Bastar constituency, which has 1.37 million voters, has always been low. In 2014, it was only 59% as against the state average of about 69.5% and in 2009 it was 47% as against state average of 55%.
The low voter turnout is due to poll boycott calls given by Maoists, said a district official.
The BJP has been winning the Bastar Lok Sabha seat, which is reserved for Scheduled Tribes, since 1998. Before that, the Congress had been winning from this seat. The political scene may be different this time around after the Congress won the Assembly elections with two-thirds majority and swept the tribal areas of Bastar.
A total of eight candidates are in the fray in Bastar constituency. There are 662,324 male voters and 715,575 female voters. There are 41 transgender voters too.
Congress bets on Baghel
Few will seriously believe, however, the Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, buoyed by its recent success in the polls, is involving himself in the high–octane campaign across the state.
The other key Congress leaders like Assembly Speaker Charandas Mahant and Minister T S Singh Deo during their campaigning for party candidates are flashing the state government’s decision to dole out a loan waiver for farmers, and announcement of minimum price of Rs 2,500 a quintal for paddy and returning of 1,764 hectares acquired for a Tata Steel plant in 2005 in Bastar to farmers.
In all, the Congress is giving a chance to three of its sitting MLAs, planning to reap dividends from three-month old Baghel government’s popular measures.
Numbers tell a story
There is a hidden politics here which the recently held election trend suggests.
One of the most remarkable points of the 2018 Assembly election result was that: since 2003 the BJP was constantly winning Assembly elections and was consistently capturing 10 Lok Sabha seats from 2004 onwards. However, the vote share variation between the Congress and the BJP throws up a completely different picture.
The difference between the vote share of the BJP and the Congress which in 2003 stood at 2.06% has fallen down to 0.7 per cent in 2013. According to result patterns witnessed in the Assembly elections, Congress is ahead by a margin of over 10% votes.
According to the party-wise votes polled for each constituency prepared by the Election Commission of India, Congress could win 10 of the 11 Lok Sabha seats. The only seat where BJP performed well in the Assembly polls was the Bilaspur Lok Sabha seat, a seat which the party hasn't lost since 1996.
Experts believe that Assembly election outcomes may have impact on the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, as there is no pre-poll wave moving in any direction.
Chhattisgarh is going to vote in three phases -- April 11, April 18, April 23.
Bastar will vote in first phase.
