Rajnandgaon (Chhattisgarh) [India], April 24 : Rajnandgaon, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bastion for over three decades, along with two other Lok Sabha constituencies in Chhattisgarh will go to polls on April 26 in the second phase of General Elections.
The high-profile constituency is set to witness a contest between Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Bhagel also known as "Kaka" and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Santosh Pandey.
Rajnandgaon Parliamentary constituency comprises a total of 8 Assemblies segments which are Pandariya, Kawardha, Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargao, Khujji and Mohla-Manpur. BJP had registered victory in the seat in both the 2019 and 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh, the BJP bagged nine seats in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, while the Congress won two of them.
During the 2019 elections, Santosh Pandey defeated Congress' Bhola Ram Sahu with a margin of 1,11,966 votes. Pandey got 50.7 percent of the vote share.
In the 2014 elections, BJP's Abhishek Singh secured the seat with 643,473 votes, with Congress' Kamleshwar Verma coming in second.
BJP, which returned to power in the Assembly polls last December has never lost the Rajnandgaon Lok Sabha seat since the formation of Chhattisgarh in 2000, except for a parliamentary bypoll in 2007 when it was defeated by the Congress.
Bhupesh Baghel who was expected to re-deliver Chhattisgarh to the party in last year's Assembly polls but failed, was named in the Congress's first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections 2024 on March 8.
Meanwhile, the BJP, in its first candidate list, fielded all 11 candidates from Chhattisgarh, including Santosh Pandey from Rajnandgaon.
Following the announcement of his candidature for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel thanked the party's high command and said that the fielded candidates would live up to the trust shown by the party.
"I thank the Party High Command for having faith in me. We will live up to the trust shown in all of us. It is a good list of candidates", Baghel told ANI.
He holds a strong presence in the Patan constituency from where he has won assembly elections multiple times. He has also served as a minister in Digvijaya Singh's government in Madhya Pradesh.
Baghel has been elected from the Patan constituency to the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly five times over the past three decades. Last year in December, the Congress leader won the Patan assembly seat once again with a wide margin of 19,723 votes by defeating his distant nephew and BJP leader Vijay Baghel.
Meanwhile, Santosh Pandey exuded confidence in winning the Lok Sabha seat, a Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) bastion for over three decades, despite Congress fielding senior leader and former Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel on Monday.
He said there is no fear and the BJP will be victorious in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
"There is no fear. I am the one who makes sharp attacks against him in the house and Parliament, who has raised questions on the Mahadev App, their government, Saumya and liquor, and I have raised questions on him from inside Sadan (the house) to Sadak (the roads). People in my constituency and state know it and I have been in charge of Bastar as well. Where the BJP was zero, we have won 8 seats out of 12 from there. So, there is no fear at all. There is no question about Bhupesh Baghel. Even if a BJP Yuva Morcha worker was contesting from here, the whole organisation is there to support him. The BJP will have the victory because the organisation is there," he said.
Chhattisgarh is voting in three phases with the first phase over on April 19 while the remaining seats vote on April 26 and May 7. The counting of votes will be done on June 4.