Chhattisgarh phase 1 polling begins battle in five states

Voting for 18 seats spread across eight Maoist-hit districts will take place in the first phase on November 12. These districts include 12 constituencies in Bastar division and six in Rajnandagoan, the home district of CM Raman Singh. Will Singh win a fourth term? The nation will have the answer on Dec 11 when the counting of votes will be taken up, reports Dalip Singh.

The Nation's Mood
Chhattisgarh goes to polls along with four other states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. Of these, MP and Rajasthan too are ruled by BJP, which is why these elections are being seen as a bellwether for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.


The state polls are also set to indicate whether Congress has regained electoral capabilities lost due to humbling show in the 2014 to take on BJP in a direct contest. The Modi wave was halted only by regional forces in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. The results will add to or may be a drag on Rahul Gandhi’s bargaining power to lead an opposition onslaught on BJP in 2019.

Manifestoes full of big promises
In their manifestos, both Congress and BJP have made promises for welfare of the farmers and the youth. BJP has promised to build a “nava” (new) Chhattisgarh. The party is relying on its best bet, CM Raman Singh, even though some say there is a voter fatigue seeing the same faces for the last 15 years.

The BJP manifesto, which the party prefers to describe as ‘Sankalp Patra’ (letter of pledge), banks on Singh’s image and development politics of BJP. “Raman par viswas, kamal sang vikas,” goes the slogan encrypted in the Sankalp Patra. Releasing the manifesto on Saturday in Raipur, BJP president Amit Shah praised Singh for keeping a check on Naxalism in Chhattisgarh and lifting it out of the category of BIMARU states. Chhattisgarh though remains the poorest state, if the Rangarajan panel findings of 2014 are to be believed.

BJP has promised to give books and uniforms free to school students till class 12. Besides, to put a check on drop outs, the party has promised free bicycles to students till class 9, and offered interest free loans of up to Rs 2 lakh for women to start their own business ventures.

Congress, interestingly, announced a ban on sale of liquor if it was voted to power but left it to gram sabhas to take a call on the issue in tribal areas of Bastar and Sarguja. Rahul Gandhi, who released the Congress manifesto titled ‘Jan Ghoshna Patra’ in Rajnandgaon, promised the party would write off farmers’ loans within 10 days of coming to power.

Impact of Naxalism
Eight districts of Bastar division figure in the worst Left-wing violence affected areas list of the Union home ministry. With the help of the NDA government at the Centre, the state has been able to restrict the operational capabilities of Maoists to certain regions of Bastar, which borders Telangana, Maharashtra and Odisha. Though on the back foot, the rebels have shown the capabilities to strike in areas of their dominance.

Like in the previous years, this time too the Maoists distributed pamphlets in Bijapur and Dantewada areas of Bastar asking people to boycott polls and especially target ruling BJP activists and leaders. The Maoists have carried out three big attacks including blowing up a mine protected vehicle killing four CRPF soldiers on October 27 in Bijapur, and following it with a deadly ambush three days later to kill a Doordarshan News cameraman along with two policemen in Dantewada.

To ensure the polls are peaceful, the authorities have deployed 650 additional companies of paramilitary forces like CRPF, BSF and ITBP in Bastar and Rajnandagaon.

Nota Challenge
A challenge before the political parties is to dissuade voters from exercising the option of NOTA in the two-phase polling. BJP would not like the voters to press the NOTA button IN LARGE NUMBERS at all ON SEATS in Rajnandagoan, chief minister Raman Singh’s home turf. In the 2013 election, BJP had lost three seats—Khairagarh, Mohala-Manpur and Dongagraon—to Congress as the votes polled for NOTA were more than the victory margins of the Congress candidates.

Going by the experience of the last polls where 53 booths in the Naxal-affected districts of Bijapur, Dantewada and Sukuma did not see any voter turnout, police in the state has asked the Election Commission to relocate 182 of them to “safer” places.