By IANS,
Raipur : About 200 Congress leaders from Chhattisgarh, where assembly polls will be held in November, have been camping in Delhi for about a month to either lobby for a ticket for themselves or for their supporters.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled mineral rich state goes to polls in two phases – Nov 14 and 20 – to elect a 90 member state assembly.
“This situation was never before seen even when Chhattisgarh was part of undivided Madhya Pradesh. About 200 leaders have been in Delhi for the past one month to lobby for their own poll tickets or for their supporters,” a party official told IANS Sunday.
“Can you believe that a majority of district chiefs of all the 18 districts, dozens of block presidents plus several state level leaders including leader of the opposition Mahendra Kara, state president Dhanendra Sahu, two working presidents – Charandas Mahant and Satyanarayan Sharma, have hardly moved from Delhi in past 30 days,” the party official said.
Even party MP and former chief minister Ajit Jogi, his arch rival in the party and nine-time Congress MP Vidyacharan Shukla and Congress treasurer Motilal Vora have hardly spared time for the state during the past 30 days.
A party official said that the party was in the final stages to select candidates for all the 90 seats but the announcement has been delayed as senior leaders were still trying to get their supporters accommodated in the final list.
In the present state assembly, Congress has 34 members, the BJP has 52 in the house while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have one seat each. Two seats are vacant.