Raman Singh locked in direct fight with his former mentor
The Congress, out of power in Chhattisgarh since 2003, is exploiting the name of Bharatiya Janata Party’s iconic leader and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to take on Chief Minister Raman Singh on his home turf Rajnandgaon that goes to the polls today.
Raman Singh, the longest serving chief minister of the BJP, is locked in a direct fight with his former mentor Karuna Shukla, niece of the late Vajpayee.
The 68-year-old Shukla, a former BJP Lok Sabha MP, ended her 32-year-long association with the ruling party in 2014 and joined the Congress.
The down-to-earth Shukla is known to have a clean image and she had rejected the BJP’s repeated efforts in the recent past to shed her anger against the saffron party.
The Congress cleverly fielded her against the BJP’s most popular face in Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, to deny him a walkover.
“Voters in Rajnandgaon are in a dilemma as they have great affection and regard for Raman Singh but Shukla is a simple and sober woman and most importantly she is seeking votes in the name of late Vajpayeeji rather than the Congress or (party president) Rahul Gandhi,” says Tejindar Bhatia, who owns a grocery shop at Gurunanak Chowk in the heart of Rajnandgaon town.
A mobile telephone shop owner, Raju Sahu admitted that Raman Singh would win because of his “deep bonding and strong connect” over the years with voters while Shukla is a “parachute candidate” who had been used by the Congress to scare the BJP.
The Congress camp is also encouraged by the huge turnout of locals at a roadshow carried out by party chief Rahul Gandhi on November 9 in Rajnandgaon town with Shukla and state Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel.
Sensing that there is a fight on Raman Singh’s home turf, BJP president Amit Shah staged a road show in Rajnandgaon town hours before campaigning ended on Saturday.
The BJP show of strength was dubbed one of the biggest election road shows in Chhattisgarh and Shah advised voters to ensure Raman Singh wins by not less than 70,000 votes.
“You need to double the victory margin this time for Raman Singh. In 2013 he won by a little over 35,000 votes, this time the margin should be above 70,000,” Shah told voters in the presence of the chief minister. Chhattisgarh has 90 assembly seats.
Meanwhile in Kolkata, Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee said the BJP was not making much headway in West Bengal and its desperation was similar to that of a turtle turned upside down.
Chatterjee charged that the BJP, in its desperation, was making provocative statements in order to gain a foothold in the state.
His comments came a day after West Bengal BJP women’s wing chief Locket Chatterjee warned that those trying to stop the party’s scheduled ‘rath yatras’ in the state will be “crushed under the wheels of the chariot”.
“Be it Locket Chatterjee, Dilip Ghosh (state BJP chief), or Rahul Sinha (BJP national secretary), they always make such destructive comments. Their condition is like that of a turtle turned upside down. It keeps throwing its limbs in the air but that is of no use,” said Chatterjee, who is also the state education minister.