Campaigning for the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh ended on Sunday evening as the state will hold its final phase of polls on Tuesday, November 20.
72 constituencies spread across 19 districts will go to polls I the second phase of the elections. A total of 1,101 candidates, including nine cabinet ministers, are contesting in this phase.
In this phase, five Districts, Dhamtari, Mahasamund, Kabirdham, Jashpur and Balrampur, are Maoist-affected and security has been beefed up to ensure smooth polling.
The parties’ campaign for this phase was related to farmers’ issues and allegations of corruption.
In the 2013 assembly polls, the Congress had won 15 seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 34.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed two rallies – Ambikapur and Mahasamund in which he did the usual and attacked the Gandhi family over allegations of dynasty politics, while BJP chief Amit Shah accused the Congress of dispensing lies and misleading the people.
Meanwhile, Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised the farmers to waive off loans and repeated the charges of corruption against the central government.
This time, Ajit Jogi’s Janata Congress Chhattisgarh is fighting the elections in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and Communist Party of India (CPI).
Jogi is himself contesting from Marwahi constituency and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati have also addressed a significant amount of rallies.
BJP facing anti-incumbency
The congress has claimed that the Chief minister Raman Singh is suffering from strong anti-incumbency. RP Singh , Congress spokesperson has said, “People of Chhattisgarh are fed-up with the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party government. We believe that the Congress will get a clear majority and this phase is important for that”.
However, the BJP has a different story to tell. Sacchinand Upasane, BJP spokesperson said, “We are banking on the development work done by Raman Singh. He is the only face in Chhattisgarh .We are winning more than 65 seats in Chhattisgarh in this assembly election”.
The state held its first phase of polls on November 12 :
Earlier, the state held its first phase of elections on November 12 in which 18 constituencies were included. The areas are mostly maoist affected and few incidents of encounter with naxals were also reported.