By IANS,
Raipur : The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chhattisgarh hopes to quell the anti-incumbency factor in the assembly polls in November by putting up new candidates, a la Gujarat.
“We have recently summed up constituency-wise inputs received from various channels and found that people are satisfied with the present BJP incumbents, but if we allot the majority of tickets (nominations) to new faces, victory will be certain,” a top BJP leader told IANS.
“Giving maximum nominations to new faces in the Gujarat assembly polls last year paid heavily. Now several senior party leaders believe the Gujarat formula needs to be implemented in Chhattisgarh to counter anti-incumbency, if any,” the source said.
He added that new faces would be fielded mostly in the assembly segments won by the BJP in the November 2003 polls to counter anti-incumbency. The lack of interest in local development issues among 12-15 party legislators might stop the BJP from retaining power in the state, he said.
BJP leaders here say the party will announce the first list of candidates for the 90-member assembly polls next month.
Right now the BJP has 52 MLAs, the opposition Congress has 34, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have one seat each while two seats are vacant.