For its ‘Battle of Bastar’
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chhattisgarh seeks to ensure that its candidate Dinesh Kashyap and other leaders travelling in Maoist hotbed Bastar for the lok Sabha poll campaigning have elaborate security cover.
The Maoist attack on March 11 this year at Jeeram valley in Bastar which resulted in the death of 15 security personnel and a civilian had prompted the party to demand arrangements for safe and incident-free campaigning by its leaders in Bastar.
The March 11 ambush by the Maoists was the second bloodiest after the attack on a Congress convoy on May 25 last year which killed the party’s State-level frontline leaders, security personnel and others. The poll battle in Bastar would not be an ordinary affair this time round with Deepak Karma, the son of slain Salwa Judum leader Mahendra Karma, being fielded by the Congress and Soni Sori by the Aam Aadmi Party.
“We are demanding that all possible security cover be provided to our candidate and the leaders when they set out to campaign in Bastar,” State BJP president Vishnudev Sai told The Pioneer over telephone.He said that the party’s candidates and leaders were provided security cover during the Assembly polls and all possible security measures would be demanded again for the lok Sabha polls as well. “We are already certain of being provided all possible security cover in Bastar,” he added.
Sai, who is the lok Sabha poll candidate from Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh constituency, will be travelling with the party’s State and Central leaders in all the 11 lok Sabha seats for campaigning. When asked about the party’s key poll plank on which the battle would be fought in Chhattisgarh, the State BJP president remarked, “It’s going to be development achieved under Chief Minister Raman Singh.”
Besides mobilising support for BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, issues of corruption and price rise during the Congress-led UPA rule would also be taken up during the campaigning by the party across the State, he said.
The party in Chhattisgarh had already completed its lok Sabha constituency-wise workers’ conventions on March 7 which saw tremendous enthusiasm among the workers, Sai said. “Each of the workers’ convention saw an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 workers attending in all the venues in lok Sabha constituencies,” he said. Meanwhile, party sources here said on Sunday that the Assembly segment-wise workers’ conventions would be held across the lok Sabha constituencies shortly to enable leaders address larger sections of workers and the masses of the State.