Except two candidates, security deposit of all the 54 Chhattisgarh Swabhiman Manch candidates has been forfeited.
Taking moral responsibility, the central spokesperson of the Manch, Rajkumar Gupta, has resigned from all his posts. He alleged that all the candidates of the party were defeated in the election, because the party’s State president had been in contact of the big leaders of the Congress.
The Chhattisgarh Swabhiman Manch had started efforts to form Third Front in the State. The State president of the party had fielded candidates in 54 seats in the Assembly election and out of which, he had claimed victory in a dozen seats, including Navagarh, Aarang, Mungeli, Durg rural, Durg city and Gundardehi. After the election result was out on Sunday, it came to know that none of the candidates has registered victory.
Central spokesperson the Manch, Gupta, said that the performance of his party was good. In many a seats, party candidates bagged good number of votes. In Navagarh, party candidate DP Dhritlahare got 42,254 votes. Urvashi Sahu got 20,938 votes in Durg city. Both these candidates saved their security deposit. Though they got good number of votes, the other candidates were not successful in saving their security.
He said that Ramkumar Gandharv got 9,330 votes in Mungeli, Krishnakumar Gabel got 5,387 votes in Sakti and Radhakrisha Tandon got 8,134 votes in Abhanpur. Ganguram Baghel got 13,004 votes in Aarang, Guman Sahu 16,745 in Gundardehi, Deenu Sahu got 4,639 in Patan, Rajendra Sahu 17,589 in Durg City, Jonikar Akthar got 8,700 votes in Vaishali Nagar.
Besides, Vimal Kumar Bande got 11,085 votes in Ahivara, Ramkrishna Sahu 5,513 from Pandariya, and Kartik Ram Marar got 6,859 votes from Kawardha seat. Similarly, two candidates got good number of votes in Bastar. In other seats, the party candidates got less number of votes.
Reacting on the defeat of his party in the state, Gupta said that the BJP got 0.7 per cent and the Congress 1.5 per cent increase of votes in the state. Big leaders of both these big parties held election rallies. In these rallies, they got success polarization of voters by telling them not to think about third or fourth front in the State. The Manch leaders failed to give assurance to people that their candidates would win the election.
He alleged that the contact of party state president Sahu with big leaders of the Congress proved fatal to his party. During the period of election he was in contact of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, general secretary Digvijay Singh and former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi and because of this reason, the voters of the party shifted their allegiance to the BJP, he added.
Gupta said that he was holding posts of central advisor, central spokesman and Bilaspur lok Sabha in-charge of the party. After election results came out, he submitted resignation from all the three posts to the state president. Now, he would work in the capacity of a general member of the party. Gupta said that the party would review the defeat and forfeiture of security deposit of candidates in three-four days.