Chhattisgarh Election: All on stakes for BJP, Congress, BSP as EC issues notification for phase II polls

Chhattisgarh Assembly Election 2018: The Election Commission of India (EC) on Friday issued notification for the second phase of the much crucial Chhattisgarh assembly polls. The state, which is scheduled to undergo polling in two phases, will have second round of elections on as many as 72 seats on November 20. The last date for parties to file the nomination is November 2 and scrutiny of nominations will be held on November 3. EC has kept the last date to withdraw nominations of candidates till November 5. The first phase of elections which will see polling on 18 Maoist-affected Assembly constituencies will take place on November 12. For the first phase of the Chhattisgarh poll, notification was issued on October 16 and last date of nomination was October 23. Scrutiny of nominations was on October 24 while last date of withdrawal of candidature is today. In the 90-member assembly in Chhatisgarh, 29 Assembly constituencies are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes while 10 seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes. The state is expected to witness a high-octane election battle as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has been in power since 2004 will take on Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and its ally Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC). Congress has fielded former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece Karuna Shukla from Rajnandgaon Assembly constituency against BJP candidate and chief minister Raman Singh. Giving a tough fight to the two major parties of the country, Mayawati’s BSP will contest the Assembly elections in partnership with Ajit Jogi JCC party. The JCC has so far announced 46 candidates out of total 55 seats it would be contesting, a party leader said. The BSP is contesting total 33 seats while the CPI two seats--Sukma and Dantewada. The list of Congress’ candidates includes some prominent names such as Anoop Naag who has been fielded from Antagarh constituency, Manoj Singh Mandavi from Bhanupratappur, Lakheshwar Baghel from Bastar, Devati Karma from Dantewada among others. According to the Election Commission, there are total 1,85,45,819 voters including 92,95,301 men, 92,49,49,459 women and 1,059 third-gender voters in the state. The state has 23,632 polling booths, out of which 19,240 are in rural and 4,392 in urban areas.