Congress’s Bhupesh Baghel trails as BJP set for 10 out of 11 in strong Chhattisgarh showing

BJP’s Chintamani Maharaj was confirmed as the winner from Sarguja constituency by a margin of 64,822 votes. The former Congress leader, who joined the BJP last year after being denied a ticket, polled 7.13 lakh votes. Congress candidate Shashi Koram trailed with 6.48 lakh votes.

Along with former CM Baghel, three other former Congress ministers were trailing – Tamradhwaj Sahu, Kawasi Lakhma, and Shivkumar Dahariya.

The only silver lining for the Congress was the comfortable margin by which sitting MP Jyotsana Mahant was leading BJP heavyweight Saroj Pandey in Korba constituency.

Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai expressed his happiness at the BJP’s performance in Chhattisgarh. “The counting is underway, so let it end first… our performance in some states has been a bit bad but, in other states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, it has been good… Several of our leaders campaigned in Odisha, and the magic of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi’s guarantee and our manifesto worked in our favour,” he said.

The INDIA bloc, he said, “relied on lies like ‘reservation will end (if BJP comes to power) and the Constitution is under threat’. I feel their lies had some effect (on the result).”

The BJP, riding high on their recent Assembly polls victory in December 2023, won the tribal-reserved seat Sarguja and were leading in the three other ST seats – Raigarh, Kanker and Bastar. They also won the one Scheduled Caste reserved seat, Janjgir-Champa.

The BJP’s leads were also big in most of the seats, with the party being ahead by over 5.5 lakh in Raipur, over 4 lakh in Durg, 2.4 lakh in Raigarh, 1.5 lakh in Bilaspur, and 1.4 lakh in Mahasamund. Even in Janjgir-Champa seat, despite the Congress winning all eight Assembly segments there last year, the BJP was comfortably ahead by a margin of 57,053 votes.

On the other hand, in Kanker, the BJP’s Bhojraj Nag was leading by a wafer-thin margin of just under 2,000 votes.

Since its formation in 2000, Chhattisgarh has seen a bipolar contest between the BJP and the Congress, with the BJP winning 10 of the 11 seats in three consecutive Lok Sabha polls between 2004 and 2014, while in 2019 the BJP won nine despite facing a massive defeat in the 2018 Assembly elections, in which it won just 15 of the 90 seats.