Aarti Dhar
New Delhi

The BJP’s challenge is to hold on to the massive margin it won by in the 2004 Lok Sabha and 2008 Assembly elections

Tribal groups emerge as the most powerful section of voters when it comes to elections in Chhattisgarh. Their vote has been the deciding factor in catapulting political parties to power or pulling them down. This was evident in the Assembly elections in 2003 as also in the recently concluded November 2008 polls. The tribal votes hold the key again in the 2009 general elections.
Chhattisgarh might be a small State in terms of the number of Lok Sabha constituencies, but the stakes here are high for the two main political parties in the electoral fray — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. Of the 11 Parliamentary seats, four are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes and one for the Scheduled Castes. Bastar and Kanker in the extreme South of Chhattisgarh and Surguja and Raigarh in the Northern tip are strong tribal bastions that traditionally backed the Congress until they shifted their loyalty to the Bharatiya Janata Party from the 2003 Assembly elections when the party came to power backed by the tribal vote. The trend held in the elections to elect the 14th Lok Sabha when the BJP won 10 of the 11 Parliamentary seats.
The lone seat that went to Congress was Mahasamund from where the first Chief Minister Ajit Jogi won. The Congress won the Rajnandgaon Parliamentary seat in 2007 when the seat fell vacant after the incumbent Pradeep Gandhi’s name figured in the cash-for-query scam and was expelled from the Lok Sabha.
The equation now stands at nine for the BJP and two for the Congress as against the eight held by the Congress and three by the BJP in the 13th Lok Sabha.
The BJP, which polled 47.78 per cent of the votes in the 2004 election as against the 40.16 per cent of the Congress, received massive support in the tribal belt again in 2008 when it won 23 of the 29 Assembly seats. This, despite the Jalwa Judum campaign in the naxalite-affected Bastar region that came in for criticism from all quarters, the media and judiciary included.
The 2009 elections will be an acid test for the BJP as well as the Congress with both parties attempting to woo the tribal voters. The contest in the State is primarily between these two parties, though the Bahujan Samaj Party has decided to put up its candidates in all the seats.
The BSP, which polled 4.54 per cent votes in 2004, has two Assembly seats in its kitty, and has the potential to cut into Congress votes in Bilaspur and Korba Parliamentary constituencies. The fight in Bilaspur and Korba seats should be interesting to watch. Korba is a new Parliamentary constituency carved out during delimitation and has pockets of the now non-existent Sarangarh reserved seat and some parts of Bilaspur constituency, including Mr. Jogi’s Marwahi seat. The adjoining Kota seat is in Bilaspur Lok Sabha segment and is held by Mr. Jogi’s wife, Renu, who is also Congress’ candidate from here. She is in direct contest with the BJP’s flamboyant Rajya Sabha member Dilip Singh Judeo.
Impressive performance
Having performed impressively in Bastar, Kanker, Surguja and Raigarh in the just concluded Assembly elections, the BJP is confident of bagging all the four ST reserved seats. Janjgir-Champa, the lone seat reserved for Scheduled Castes, will see a contest between Kamla Patle of the BJP and Shiv Dahariya of the Congress both of whom will have to do a lot of caste calculations to evolve an election strategy for this re-organised seat.
Another constituency that could see an interesting fight would be Durg from where the city Mayor Saroj Pandey of the BJP — who saw herself in the Chhattisgarh Assembly a couple of months ago — will give a tough fight to Pradeep Choubey, a socialist with a strong Congress background. His mother was an MLA and his brother a Minister in Ajit
Jogi government. At present, the seat is with Tarachand Sahu of the BJP.
Of particular interest to the Chief Minister Raman Singh will be the Rajnandgaon Parliamentary seat that he represented in 13th Lok Sabha, wresting it from Congress stalwart Moti Lal Vora. The stakes are high for Dr. Singh who needs to win the seat back, particularly after a stunning performance in his home territory in 2008 elections. In 2004, Pradeep Gandhi (BJP) won the seat but when elections were held again in 2007 after his disqualification, the people’s mandate went to Devvrat Singh of the Congress.
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece Karuna Shukla, who was also the lone woman MP to make it to the Lok Sabha from the State from Janjgir, is once again pitted against Charan Das Mahant but from the newly carved Korba constituency. Janjgir is now Janjgir-Champa and a SC seat.
Five-term Member of Parliament and former Union Minister Ramesh Bais of the BJP takes on the former State Minister Bhupesh Baghel in a direct contest from Raipur Parliamentary constituency.