Longest-serving CM Raman Singh and five other BJP big guns in Chhattisgarh

Raman Singh

Raman Singh is the longest-serving CM of Chhattisgarh who held the post from the first Assembly election held in the state in 2003 till 2018, when the Singh-led BJP was routed, getting just 15 seats in the 90-member House.

Singh, 71, holds a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree. He began his political career in college and won his first election as a councillor in 1983. In 1999, after two terms as an MLA, he won his first Lok Sabha election.

In 2003, when the BJP chose him to lead the party in the state’s first Assembly poll, Singh resigned as the Union minister to return to the state.

The six-time MLA has now been fielded again from Rajnandgaon, where Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a rally on the day he filed his nomination. Singh will face Girish Dewangan of the Congress, the state Mineral Development Corporation chairman who was among those raided by the ED recently.

Vijay Baghel

A former Congress leader, Vijay Baghel, 64, is a distant nephew of incumbent CM Bhupesh Baghel. Vijay won the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 from Durg, defeating the Congress candidate by 3.92 lakh votes. He has now been pitted against Bhupesh for a fourth time from the Patan seat in Durg district, which is home to both.

While Vijay, a BCom graduate, has defeated Bhupesh once in the 2008 Assembly polls, he has lost twice to his uncle, in the 2003 and 2013 Assembly polls. He also heads BJP’s manifesto committee.

When asked why he quit the Congress, Vijay had told The Indian Express, “Congress was a jhooth ka pulinda (bundle of lies) and Bhupesh had a lot of ghamand aur ahankar (pride and ego). And people like him were being promoted.” After leaving the Congress in 2000, Vijay won the municipal elections as an Independent from Bhilai Charoda, and went on to become the Municipal Council chairman.

Arun Sao

Many see Sao as a potential CM candidate in the event of the BJP victory. A year ago, the 54-year-old Lok Sabha MP from Bilaspur was appointed as the state BJP president, replacing tribal leader Vishnudeo Sai. Sao had won the 2019 election by 1.41 lakh votes, riding the second Modi wave.

In this Assembly election, Sao has been fielded from Lormi, part of the Bilaspur Lok Sabha constituency, against the Congress’s Thaneshwar Sahu, the chairman of Chhattisgarh State Backward Classes Commission. The Lormi seat was won by the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC-J) in 2018.

Sao comes from the Sahu Samaj, the state’s dominant OBC (Other Backward Classes) community, which is a key factor in at least 51 general seats.

He is the son of senior RSS leader Abhayram Sao. He was born and raised in Mungeli and followed his father’s footsteps to become a Sangh worker. A lawyer by education, he started his political career in 1996 with the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.

Sao was instrumental in raising several corruption issues against the CM and openly blamed the Congress for alleged “conspiracy and targeted killing” of four BJP leaders killed by Maoists this year. When a youth from the Sahu community was killed in the communal violence in Bemetara despite a curfew, he took out a rally and called for a statewide bandh.

Kedar Kashyap

The 48-year-old BJP leader from Narayanpur district in Naxal-affected Bastar, Kedar Kashyap is the son of senior BJP leader late Baliram Kashyap, who was a four-time MLA and four-time Lok Sabha MP from Bastar.

As a state minister, Kedar had escaped a murder attempt by Naxals in 2009, when, minutes after he had left from a temple in Bhanpuri, Bastar, his brother Tansen, a Janpat Panchayat president, was shot dead, while another brother Dinesh, who later became an MP, was injured in the attack.

A two-time minister, Kashyap was a Janpat member in 2000 and has been a three-time MLA from 2003 till 2018, when he lost his Narayanpur seat by 2,647 votes.

This time, Kashyap, seen as the BJP’s Hindutva face in Bastar, has been making allegations of conversion of tribals in Naryanpur, hoping to defeat sitting Congress MLA Chandan Kashyap.

Brijmohan Agrawal

Despite his party facing a huge defeat in 2018, four-time minister Agrawal, 64, was then elected MLA for the seventh time with a margin of over 17,000 votes. Seen as a vocal leader, he led the charge against the Congress in the Vidhan Sabha, especially against CM Baghel.

Agrawal is an MCom and LLB by qualification. He began his political career at the age of 18 by joining the ABVP. In 1990, at the age of 31, he became the youngest MLA in Madhya Pradesh and was awarded the best MLA in the undivided state in 1997.

One of his major strengths in holding on to power is said to be his closeness to the trader community in Raipur city. This time, he will face former MLA and mahant of Dudhadhari temple Ramsundar Das of the Congress, who had opposed controversial statements made by controversial religious guru Kalicharan Maharaj against Mahatma Gandhi in the 2021 Raipur Dharam Sansad.

Renuka Singh

Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Renuka Singh, 59, has been fielded from Bharatpur-Sonhat seat in the Surguja region, which was won by the Congress in 2018.

A two-time MLA from the Premnagar seat in Surguja, she lost her seat in 2013. Despite the Congress sweeping all 14 seats in Surguja in 2018, Singh rode the Modi wave to win the Surguja Lok Sabha seat in 2019 by 1.57 lakh votes.

Educated up to higher secondary, Singh is an agriculturist by profession and owns an Indian oil gas agency. She began as a Janpat Panchayat member and was a member of the state Social Welfare Board before becoming an MLA. She will face sitting Congress MLA Gulab Kamro in Bharatpur-Sonhat.