As only 48 hours are left when the people of Chhattisgarh will exercise their franchise to elect their representatives for the remaining 72 Assembly constituencies going to polls in second phase on November 19, the electioneering reached its crescendo Friday with both the main contending parties — Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party pressing in all the resources on their disposal.
BJP poster boy Narendra Modi and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh led the saffron campaign from the front, taking the State by storm, even as the Gujarat CM held four meetings on a single day on Friday. Other star campaigners of BJP, including former deputy PM veteran leader lK Advani held meeting on Saturday and national vice president Smriti Irani, actor turned politician Vinod Khanna as also a number of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha MlAs tried their best to woo voters in favour of BJP candidates, BJP General Secretaries JP Nadda (Chhattisgarh in-charge) and Dharmendra Pradhan camped in the State capital to oversee the poll arrangements.
Congress too, not taking any chance, pressed all its resources including an assortment of leaders, both Central as well as State level, raising the pitch of its campaign.
Key Congress campaigners, including party vice president Rahul Gandhi held meeting on Saturday, Congress national general secretaries BK Hariprasad, Bhakta Charan Das, Rajya Sabha member Mohsina Kidwai, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Union Minister Kumari Selja, Shrikant Jena of Odisha as well as party national spokesman Raj Babbar along with CGPCC president Charandas Mahant, AICC Treasurer Motilal Vora and others made all out efforts to convince voters to cast their votes in favour of Congress seeking change in the State.
Former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi led the Congress campaign from the front visiting several areas in Bilaspur district and elsewhere. Meanwhile, with the inching of second phase campaign towards its end, pitch of the campaigning turned unsavoury with leaders attacking rivals personally. Development, which earlier formed the base of the poll plank of the ruling party, virtually lost its grace as BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi started targeting Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on the issue of Central assistance given to Chhattisgarh as also on the issue of governance.
In turn, Congress national spokesman Raj Babbar not only wanted to know the name of business man sponsoring Modi’s poll campaign in Chhattisgarh, but the former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi even called him nakli sher (fake lion) of BJP summoned from Gujarat. While the BJP stalwarts lauded the achievements of Raman Government comparing the same with Congress and sought people’s mandate to take the development forward, Haryana CM Bhupinder Hooda questioning the BJP claim said that while under 9 years of Congress rule Haryana became number one State development wise, under the 10-rule of BJP Chhattisgarh slipped to last position on several parameters.
On Saturday, former deputy PM lK Advani, BJP national president Rajnath Singh, deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Ravishankar Prasad, national vice president Smriti Irani, MP Vinod Khanna and Chhattisgarh CM Dr Raman Singh held 25 meeting besides CM’s road show at Beltara and Bilaspur. On the Congress side, party’s national vice president Rahul Gandhi once hit the campaign trail, held three election meetings — Kharasia, Surajpur and Raipur — on Saturday.