Voting for the Marwahi Assembly by-election in Chhattisgarh will be held today amid tight security and Covid-19 protocols, and the tribal- dominated seat is expected to see a straight fight between the ruling Congress and the main Opposition BJP.
The election in the Scheduled Tribes (ST)-reserved constituency was necessitated by the death of JCC (J) legislator and former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi.
The seat, a bastion of the Jogi family for several years, will this time see a fight between the ruling Congress and the BJP after the nomination papers of Amit Jogi, the son of Ajit Jogi, and his wife Richa were rejected by the Returning Officer, who said their caste certificates were invalid.
Polling will be held between 8 am and 6 pm and all Covid guidelines issued by the Election Commission will be strictly followed, the authorities said.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Reena Babasaheb Kangale said that all preparations have been completed for voting.
A total of 190,907 voters, including 97,209 females, are eligible to exercise their franchise. As many as 286 polling stations have been set up, of which 126 have been categorized as "sensitive", she said. Covid infected voters can cast their votes in the last one hour of polling, she said.
Some 1,400 security personnel have been deployed for the battle, the results of which will be announced on November 10.
Though eight candidates are in the fray, the main fight is between Congress' K.K. Dhruw, a former medical officer, and BJP’s Gambheer Singh, an ex-professor of the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Medical College, Raipur.
The other candidates in the fray are Ritu Pandram of the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), Dr Urmila Singh Marko of the Rashtriya Gondwana Party, Pushpa Khelan Korche of the Ambedkarite Party of India, Beersingh Nagesh of the Bharatiya Tribal Party, Lakshman Porte of the Bharatiya Sarvajan Hitay Samaj Party and independent Sonmati Salam.
In the 2018 Assembly polls, state’s first chief minister Ajit Jogi polled 74,041 votes in Marwahi, beating BJP’s Archana Porte by 46,462 votes. The Congress has finished third.