With the announcement of candidates by both the national political parties, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, not only the board of political chess has been laid out in this politically sensitive area but the rival candidates have also started searching their armoury for potent weapons with poll fever taking over the region. In the same time, party leaders are finding hard to spearhead their campaign as their respective foot soldiers refused to go to internal areas, an aftermath of the rebels’ Jeeram outrage, limiting the poll brouhaha to urban centres only.
Notably, major portion, about 70 percent, of areas in Bastar division is insurgency hit where the rebels have announced boycott of polls and are continuously executing violent activities to create terror among the electorate as well giving clear indication that normal polling was impossible in these areas. Both electorate and polling officials would like to face the wrath of Maoists. Though poll officials will compulsorily have to go to those areas to perform their duty, but the same compulsion will not be with the electorate.
In this situation both the main political parties are focussing on urban electorate and whoever will be successful in luring them will most probably win the poll as well. However, Bharatiya Communist Party, which has also decided to contest some of the Bastar seats, Konta, Dantewada and Bijapur, is looking for taking advantage of the terror situation and would try its best to capture rural votes.