There is going to be no cakewalk victory for Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-riddled tribal heartland Bastar region of Chhattisgarh which goes to polls on Nov 11. Experts say that poll outcome in Bastar will largely decide which party to form Government in the mineral-rich State.
However, insiders in the BJP in the light of the party’s affairs informed that the most significant issue confronting the saffron party is the unpredictability of the tribal voters in the 12 Assembly seats in Bastar as fear of insurgents coupled with the anti incumbency factor could spoil the party for ruling BJP in the State.
The BJP while riding high on its ‘development plank’ in Bastar could be overshadowed by ‘sympathy votes’ to the Congress as well as inability of certain BJP MlAs to actually prove they have done their jobs in the interior parts of Bastar where Maoists run a parallel Government since late 1980s.
The visit of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to Bastar last month had pointed towards the Congress trying to prove that part of development in Bastar is due to centrally sponsored schemes and not really part of the ‘development’ wave agenda of the ruling BJP.
Notably, 11 out of 12 Assembly seats in Bastar are currently with the BJP with the lone Konta seat with the Congress MlA Kawasi lakhma who was allegedly spared by the Maoists during their attack on Congress convoy on May 25 this year.
The Congress party has been making ‘cautious’ efforts to choose the right candidate to take on the BJP in the 12 Bastar seats as even the party leadership knows that tribals may not line up to vote only on the basis on Jeeram Ghati episode which wiped off a majority of the Congress party’s State leadership.
As far as indications go, the preliminary signals point towards one Congress agenda visible—it is trying to prove that a significant part of the Bastar’s development came from funds from the ‘central kitty’.