C’GARH: A DISASTROUS POLL DEBUT FOR SONI SORI & AAP
The debut by the Aam Admi Party ( AAP) in the just- concluded Lok Sabha elections in Chhattisgarh has proved to be disastrous with all its 10 candidates, including Soni Sori, forfeiting their deposits.
The outcome of polls in Bastar ( ST) parliamentary constituency has come as a shocker for Aam Aadmi Party when Soni Sori, fielded by the party in the seat, fared poorly by securing only 16,903 votes.
She ended up a poor third in terms of votes polled after Bhartiya Janata Party’s Dinesh Kashyap and Congress’ Deepak Karma in the seat. Incidentally, the number of votes cast for Nota in the constituency was almost double of the votes polled by Ms Sori.
As many as 38,772 votes were cast for Nota in Bastar constituency. Many NGOs had run a high- profile campaign for Sori in Bastar by financing her electioneering and sponsoring visits of national and foreign activists to drum up support for her. Soni Sori’s presence in the fray had also attracted curious scribes from abroad to Bastar during electioneering. “The Bastar result is indeed a great disappointment for us. We expected her to at least to be in the contest,” a senior Aam Aadmi Party leader here conceded before this newspaper on Saturday.
“We may not have done well in the elections in Chhattisgarh this time, but we have been able to influence outcome of polls in two constituencies”, state AAP coordinator Sanket Thakur said.