Former Chief Minister Raman Singh is one of the contenders for the top post in Chhattisgarh after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power in the state under a collective leadership.
After the BJP won 54 seats, there are a few in the race to become the Chief Minister.
Three-time Chief Minister (2003 to 2018), Raman Singh is one of the leading contenders.
A Rajput by caste, Raman Singh joined the saffron party as a youth member and was president of its youth wing in Kawardha in 1976-77.
Then, he became a councillor of Kawardha municipality in 1983. He was elected a legislator from Kawardha seat in 1990 and 1993 but lost the 1998 assembly polls.
Later, he defeated former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Motilal Vora in the 1999 general elections and became a MP from Rajnandgaon constituency.
He was the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry from 1999 to 2003 in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
He was named head of the Chhattisgarh unit of BJP in the new state of Chhattisgarh, which was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, and led the party to a victory in the 2003 Assembly elections.
Arun Sao, another leading contender, an Other Backward Class (OBC) leader, started his political career with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad (ABVP). He also served as BJP’s district president, state co-secretary and ABVP’s National Working Committee member.
Sao rose through the ranks after serving as a booth-level worker.
He became a MP from Bilaspur in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and was appointed the BJP state unit chief in November last year.
Vishnu Deo Sai, a tribal leader, is also a contender for the top post. His political career started when he was elected unopposed the Sarpanch in village Bagia.
He was a legislator in undivided Madhya Pradesh between 1990 and 1998 and was elected a MP in 1999-2019. He was Union Minister of State for Steel in the first Modi ministry between 2014 and 2019.
Sai also served as BJP state unit president from 2020 until 2022.
Bureaucrat-turned-politician Om Prakash Chaudhary, an OBC leader, also seems to be a contender as Home Minister Amit Shah assured to make him ‘Bada Admi’. He may get the post of Deputy Chief Minister.
Choudhary lost the 2018 Assembly polls from the Congress bastion Kharsia seat but has now been elected from the Raigarh seat by a huge margin.
