Battle Between “Baghel vs. Baghel” In Chhattisgarh? BJP Pits Nephew Against Uncle

In a crucial constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s list of candidates for the 2018 Chhattisgarh assembly elections is likely to spark a “Baghel vs. Baghel” battle. In an effort to dislodge his uncle, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, from the Patan seat, the BJP is re-entering Durg MP Vijay Baghel into the fray. Whether the Chief Minister will run from his stronghold is not yet known.

Vijay Baghel, who is in charge of the BJP’s 31-member “Ghoshna Patra Samiti” or electoral manifesto committee, defeated Bhupesh Baghel from the same seat in the 2008 assembly elections. He has never before served in the state assembly. But in 2013, Bhupesh Baghel defeated him. He didn’t run in the 2018 state elections. He ran for office in the 2019 general election in Durg against Pratima Chandrakar of the Congress, and he won by nearly four lakh votes.

The Bharatiya Janata Party unveiled its initial list of candidates for 21 seats which it had previously lost in the upcoming assembly elections in Chhattisgarh on Thursday.

There are 16 new names on the list, the majority of whom are district panchayat officials, while five others are former legislators. There are five women on the list.

The Chhattisgarh assembly’s 90 seats will be filled by elections, which have not yet been announced.
The BJP announced nominees for 21 seats, 10 of which are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) and one for Scheduled Castes (SC). Currently, the Congress holds all 21 of these seats.

For the seats where there were few disagreements among party members over the nominees, the BJP allegedly declared names in the initial list.

While the BJP failed to win any of these 21 seats in 2018, it did lose 16 of them in 2013 (while it was still in power in the state).
According to a BJP leader, the party is not very strong in these 21 seats, thus the candidates were named early to give them enough time to visit the voters and build relationships with them.

In 2018, the Congress won 68 of the 90 available seats, while the BJP came in second place with 15. Five seats went to the JCC (J), and two to its ally, the BSP.

71 MLAs now serve in the Congress.