Voting for Bastar Lok Sabha seat of Chhattisgarh will be held in the first phase on April 19. There are 12 candidates in the fray here. Here Aatu Ram Mandavi from Bahujan Samaj Party-BSP, Kawasi Lakhma from Congress and Mahesh Kashyap from Bharatiya Janata Party-BJP are in the fray. Apart from these, Kanwal Singh Baghel, Jagdish Nag, Tikam Nagvanshi, Narendra Burka, Phoolsingh Kachalam, Shivram Nag, Prakash Kumar Gota and Sundar Baghel are also trying their luck. All the leaders are claiming their respective victories. Presently Deepak Baij of Congress is the MP from here.
There are 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh. Here in the first phase, elections are going to be held only on Bastar Lok Sabha seat. Actually, in the tribal dominated Bastar seat, sometimes Congress, sometimes BJP and sometimes independent candidates have been there. It cannot be called the traditional seat or stronghold of any party or leader. The people here installed whomever they liked and whoever they did not like, were shown the way out. Although BJP has had a long hold here. From 1998 to 2014, BJP candidates have been victorious continuously. BJP’s Baliram Kashyap ruled here for more than 11 years. Baliram Kashyap represented Bastar in Delhi for 4 consecutive times, but he died on March 10, 2011. In the by-election on the seat vacated by Baliram’s death, BJP fielded his son Dinesh Kashyap and won. He also won the 2014 elections, but in the 2019 elections, Congress’s Deepak Baij won.
There are 8 assembly seats in six districts in Bastar Lok Sabha constituency. These include Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Jagdalpur, Dantewada, Chitrakote, Bijapur and Konta assembly constituencies. Out of these 8, 5 are held by BJP and 3 by Congress. Congress candidate Kawasi Lakhma is the MLA from Konta seat of Sukma district.
New face of BJP in front of Congress veteran
BJP has fielded Mahesh Kashyap from here. He is contesting elections for the first time. He has received education only till 10th standard. Mahesh Kashyap has been associated with organizations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal at the district level. He has been the Sarpanch of his village Kalcha from 2014 to 2019. Mahesh is contesting from six-time MLA Kawasi Lakhma. Kawasi is a tribal leader. He won the assembly elections for the first time in 2003. In 2013, Naxalites attacked his convoy. In which more than 30 people except him were killed. Kawasi Lakhma has also been a cabinet minister in the Chhattisgarh government.
Talking about the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Deepak Baij of Congress got 4.02 lakh votes, 44 percent of the total votes. BJP’s Baiduram Kashyap got 3.63 lakh votes with 39.83 percent. Apart from these, other candidates got less votes than NOTA. 41,667 people voted in favor of the note. BSP’s Aaytu Ram Mandavi got only 3.34 percent of 30,449 votes. At that time, a total of 9.13 lakh, 761 people had cast their valuable votes on this seat.
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Tags: 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, bastar news, Chhattisgarh news, Loksabha Election 2024, Loksabha Elections
FIRST PUBLISHED: April 12, 2024, 17:03 IST