18 seats go to...

The 2013 polls for Chhattisgarh’s 90 assembly constituencies were close, with the BJP winning 49 seats and the Congress 39. The difference in vote share between them was less than one percentage point. Mayawati’s BSP secured one seat and the other went to an independent. In Monday’s polling, there are over three million registered voters spread across 18 constituencies. As many as 190 candidates are in the fray, including chief minister Raman Singh, who is contesting the Rajnandgaon seat, and two other ministers. A total of 4,336 polling booths have been set up, the police said. In 10 constituencies, polling will be held from 7am to 3pm; others will vote from 8am to 5pm. “We are using all methods to ensure that polling takes place in (Maoist) affected areas,” said special director general of police (Naxal operations) DM Awasthi, adding that 10 helicopters were being used to send electronic voting machines and polling staff to 210 sensitive booths.

“A total of 660 companies of paramilitary forces have been sent by the Centre and we have about 300 companies here... the number of personnel deployed in the region is about 90,000 to 100,000,” Awasthi said.

He said the entire Bastar region was sensitive because Maoists “are using IEDS (improvised explosive devices) on the roads”. Awasthi added that Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada and Narayapur were the most-sensitive districts in this phase.

On Sunday, Mahendra Singh, a 28-year-old BSF sub-inspector and a resident of Rajasthan, was killed after Maoists reportedly triggered IED blasts in Kanker district around 8:30am when a security team was on a patrol. In another incident, a Maoist was shot dead in an encounter with security forces in Bijapur district.suspected Maoists blew up a bus in Dantewada on Thursday, killing four civilians and a Central Industrial Security Force jawan. And on October 30, three policemen and Doordarshan cameraperson Achyutanand Sahu were killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada.

“Maoists are frustrated due to the continuous pressure of security forces...the government is determined to eradicate Maoists from Bastar,” said BJP spokesperson Sacchinand Upasane.

But Congress spokesperson and senior leader RP Singh said the state government has failed to curb violence. “In 2003, when the Congress government was in power, there were only three blocks that were Maoist-affected, and now 15 districts are under the grip of Maoism,” he said. Political analyst Tomar said Maoists wanted to pose hurdles to the polling process after giving a boycott call. The results will be announced on December 11, along with the other four pollbound states. gist and head of research, India, Mizuho Bank, said: “Post-demonetisation and post-gst implementation there was a slowdown in growth. Just to be clear, growth rate had started easing well before the announcement of demonetisation already. Demonetisation was announced in the third quarter of FY17 fiscal. Whereas growth had started slowing down right after the first quarter after the asset quality review announcement by RBI. Bank credit had started slowing down. In FY18 growth slowed down after implementation, post which growth starting coming back up. A large part of it was base effect.” not to be named. The questioning resumed on Sunday before Reddy was arrested, the officer added.

In a series of videos released on Saturday, Reddy rebutted the charges against him and criticised the police for “spreading false information”. He also refuted allegations by the police that he was on the run to evade arrest.

Reddy was denied a ticket by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Karnataka assembly elections in May, but campaigned for his two brothers, Gali Karunakara Reddy and Gali Somashekhara Reddy. He also campaigned in the Molakalmuru seat for close aide and eventual winner B Sriramulu.

Sriramulu resigned as the Lok Sabha MP from Ballari seat following the assembly elections. The seat was won by the Congress in last week’s bypoll.