Chhattisgarh Assembly election results: In a big setback to the ruling Congress in Chhattisgarh, nine of its ministers, including outgoing Deputy Chief Minister TS Singh Deo, lost their seats in the poll results declared on Sunday. Singh Deo fell short of just 94 votes from Rajesh Agrawal of the BJP.
In the 2018 Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, Deo had won this seat defeating BJP’s Anurag Singh Deo by a margin of 39,624 votes. He contested the elections from the Ambikapur constituency.
Besides TS Singh Deo and Ravindra Choubey, other ministers who couldn’t make it through are Mohammad Akbar, Tamradhwaj Sahu (home minister), Amarjeet Bhagat, Shiv Kumar Dahariya, Guru Rudra Kumar, Mohan Markam and Jaisingh Agrawal. Another major loss is of the new Pradesh Congress Committee chief (PCC) Deepak Baij, a Lok Sabha member, who lost from Chitrakote. Incidentally, Baij had won the seat in 2018 but vacated it to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
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Akbar, a four-time MLA, who had won Kawardha seat by a record margin of over 59,000 votes, lost to Vijay Sharma of the BJP, one of the prime accused in the 2021 communal violence in Kawardha. Sharma won by 39,592 votes.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel defeated his nephew and Lok Sabha member Vijay Baghel for a third time, winning the Patan seat for the sixth time. Minister Umesh Patel won the Kharsia seat and Kawasi Lakma won Konta, the seats which Congress has never lost since 2003. The only woman minister of Congress, Anila Bhendia, retained her Dondi Lohara seat emphatically.
Also, Speaker Charan Das Mahant retained his Sakti seat. MLA Devendra Yadav, who was chargesheeted in the coal levy case by the ED, too, won by a slim margin of 1,264 votes.
Among the big winners for the BJP are former three-time Chief Minister Raman Singh who won by 45,084 votes. Among the four Lok Sabha members from BJP who contested the Assembly elections, except for Vijay Baghel, the other three won. These are Union Minister Renuka Singh, Gomati Sai, and Arun Sao who is also the BJP in charge in Chhattisgarh. However, BJP’s leader of opposition Narayan Chandel lost from Janjgir Champa seat.
Also Read: Chhattisgarh Assembly Election Result 2023: Congress staring at the biggest upset in Chhattisgarh
While several BJP leaders made a comeback, a surprise victory for the BJP was that of Ishwar Sahu, a farmer who was given a ticket by BJP as a “symbol of justice” after his son was killed in a communal incident in Bemetara district this year. Sahu defeated seven-time MLA and minister Ravindra Choubey, PTI reported.
The Congress, which was confident it would win Chhattisgarh, was in for a shock as the BJP swept the rug off the grand-old party. Out of the 90 assembly seats, the BJP won 54 seats, the Congress on 35 seats and the Gondvana Gantantra Party won one seat.