Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit two districts of Chhattisgarh, Bilaspur, and Bastar on September 30 and October 3, 2023, respectively. It will be the third and fourth time in the last three months that PM Modi is visiting these two specific districts. The visit comes days after Rahul Gandhi addressed a rally in Bilaspur on September 25.
Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are setting up their groundwork in Chhattisgarh before the 2023 Assembly elections that are going to take place soon in November and December 2023 and for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
During the visit, PM Modi will address 24 assembly constituencies under 8 districts, out of which seven seats have been secured by the BJP and Congress holds 13 seats. While the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress (J) has two seats, the other two are secured by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Chhattisgarh, in total, has 11 seats in the Lok Sabha, and Bilaspur district alone has 4 seats, mostly held by the BJP, and only one seat is held by the Congress Party.
Congress and the BJP will face off equally in the Bilaspur district, but given the BJP’s six straight victories, Congress may face difficulties in the Bastar assembly poll. Except in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, in which Deepak Baij of the Congress won the Bastar seat with a majority as an MP. Additionally, Congress gained all 12 of the remaining assembly seats for the Bastar division in the most recent assembly elections, making it the undisputed victor.
On Monday, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi visited Bilaspur and announced 413 development projects worth around Rs 600 crore under the Mukhyamantri Gramin Awas Nyay Yojna (MGANY). Further, he contributed Rs. 25 thousand as a first installment under the same scheme.