It’s just a week before the first phase of Assembly polls and political parties are yet to warm up to the poll campaigning in most parts of the State. Besides door-to-door contact by candidates of some political parties, the noise and the fervour associated with a poll season is completely missing this time round.
The reason being cited for the lack of enthusiasm among the political parties is the stringent rules under the Model Code of Conduct which is keeping the parties wary of launching a high decibel campaign in most parts of the State.
Apart from public meetings being held by the leaders of the two major political parties - the BJP and the Congress in the State, there are no leaflets or the fancy poll material being distributed this time round by campaigners in most cities and towns. Except for a few major processions held in some parts of the State, as candidates reached the various district collectorates to file their nominations last week, there had hardly been processions exclusively for campaigning by various candidates in the poll fray in the State. Political analysts believe that both the BJP and the Congress are banking on their star campaigners to make the impact in particularly the rural areas with their public meetings.
This apart, a part of the campaigning by the key political parties has switched to Social Media such as facebook which had resulted in more visiting facebook pages of political parties rather than being wooed by parties with leaflets, badges and other poll material in the State, informed a worker of a political party here.
Chhattisgarh goes to Assembly polls in two phases to elect a 90-member State legislative Assembly. The first phase poll is to be held on November 11 for 18 Assembly seats spread out in seven districts of Bastar region besides Rajnandgaon district. The first phase polling will seal the fate of several major personalities such as Chief Minister Raman Singh who is contesting from Rajnandgaon seat. In the second and the final phase of the polling, elections are to be held on November 19 for 72 seats which are based in 19 districts.