Voting has begun for the second and final phase of the Chhattisgarh
Assembly elections, which is being held in 72 seats of 19 districts
today amid tight security, with the deployment of over one lakh police
personnel.
Of the 72 seats, 46 are for the general category, while nine are
reserved for Scheduled Castes and 17 for Scheduled Tribes candidates. Of
these seats, the BJP had won 43 seats in the 2013 polls while the
Congress had bagged 27. One seat each was won by the BSP and an
independent candidate.
The fate of nine ministers, assembly speaker and some other prominent
leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as of the
Congress will be decide in the polls.
The BJP has this time fielded nine ministers Brijmohan Agrawal (Raipur
City South), Rajesh Munat (Raipur City West), Amar Agrawal (Bilaspur),
Bhaiyyalal Rajwade (Baikunthpur), Ramsevak Paikra (Pratappur), Punnulal
Mohile (Mungeli), Prem Prakash Pandey (Bhilai Nagar), Dayaldas Baghel
(Nawagarh) and Ajay Chandrakar (Kurud), and also state chief Dharamlal
Kaushik (Bilha).
Congress state chief Bhupesh Baghel (Patan), Leader of Opposition T S
Singhdeo (Ambikapur), Congress MP from Durg Lok Sabha seat Tamradhwaj
Sahu (Durg rural), and former Union minister Charandas Mahant (Shakti)
are among the key opposition party candidates in the fray.
Polling will be held from 8 am to 5 pm in these seats of central and
north Chhattisgarh where as many as 1,079 candidates, including 72 each
from the BJP and the Congress
For the second phase of polls, there are 1,53,85,983 voters, including
77,46,628 men, 76,38,415 women and 940 of the third gender. As many as
19,296 polling booths have been set up for the second phase, the
official said.
The highest number of 46 contestants are in the Raipur City South
constituency, while the lowest number of six contestants are in the
Bindranavagarh seat
In the first phase, polling was
held in 18 seats of eight Naxal-affected districts on Nov 12,2018
