BJP keeps Bastar seat

Kashyap defeated Congress rival Kawasi Lakhma,the sitting legislator from Konta ST segment,in the contest in which the BJP nominee maintained comfortable leads in seven Assembly segments,except in Konta where Lakhma got a slender margin of 1,203 votes. CPI candidate Rama Sodi finished third.

Kashyap is the son of former BJP MP Baliram Kashyap,who had won the 2009 Lok Sabha polls by a margin of more than one lakh votes. By-election for the Bastar seat was necessitated following Balirams death after a prolonged illness. The Kashyap family holds considerable clout in Bastar as the BJP candidates younger brother Kedar is the minister for Public Health Engineering in the Raman Singh Ministry while his other family members held responsible positions in the three tier Panchayati Raj institutions.

The main opposition Congress,which tried to put up a united face a change from its well-known internal squabbling looked disappointed with the BJPs impressive margin and alleged misuse of official machinery by the ruling party.

Lakhma said,Elections in Naxalite-affected Bastar constituency is different from polls in other constituencies. Election authorities had shifted a large number of polling stations to a distance of 2-40 km. Polling parties could be airlifted to polling stations. What about the voters?

CPI leader Chhittaranjan Bakshi too said that shifting of a large number of polling stations to different places had deprived the people from exercising their franchise,leading to low polling percentage.