{"id":504136,"date":"2024-03-09T15:38:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T10:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/?p=504136"},"modified":"2024-04-16T18:36:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T13:06:39","slug":"congress-first-list-2024-lok-sabha-elections-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/politics\/congress-first-list-2024-lok-sabha-elections-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress re-invests faith in jaded Chhattisgarh leaders for 2024 Lok Sabha elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Neeraj Mishra<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A floundering Congress has announced the candidature of its tired, old leaders with only one qualification: they have the money to spend since they had been ministers till recently. Thus former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will contest the Rajnandgaon seat, Deupty CM Tamradhwaj Sahu has been fielded from Mahasamund and former minister Shiv Deharia has been sent to Janjgir while former Speaker Charan Das Mahant\u2019s wife Jyotsna seeks to retain Korba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Congress is reaping the sour fruit of what it has sown over decades when it refused to look beyond the Shuklas, the Jogis and their acolytes.\u00a0The same suspects are still crowding the scene after having lost a winnable Assembly election in 2023. It is likely that the next list of five will also contain usual suspects like Deputy CM TS Singhdeo from Bilaspur and PCC president Deepak Baij from Kanker and former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma or his son from Bastar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To its credit, the BJP has not lost more than two seats in any Lok Sabha election since the formation of Chhattisgarh and hopes to win all 11 seats this time. And every time it goes into battle, it comes up with a new formula. Last time, it was a complete change of guard\u2014all 11 candidates were changed, nine won. This time they have retained only two of the nine winners and junked non-performers. The formula this time is to remove senior legislators like Brijmohan Agarwal, Vijay Baghel and Saroj Pandey from the state to give an easier time to the new CM Vishnu Deo Sai and his inexperienced cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jyotsna Mahant, who has been re-nominated from Korba against her wishes, is up against Saroj Pandey, recently retired from the Rajya Sabha after two terms. The stakes are high for Pandey as she hopes to become a union minister considering her seniority. Once considered a possible CM, she has had a stint as party general secretary at the centre for the past 10 years. Similarly, Agarwal is an eight-time MLA contesting his first Lok Sabha elections from the state capital. Agarwal is set to bid adieu to state politics since the BJP has never lost Raipur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is quite amazing that after having been in the opposition in the state for 15 years, no senior Congress leader switched to the BJP. Still it never won more than one seat in three Lok Sabha elections except in 2019 when it doubled its tally to two after winning the Assembly elections in 2018. It was expected to win the Assembly elections this time too but Rahul Gandhi\u2019s inability to replace Bhupesh Baghel as chief minister under pressure from Priyanka Gandhi proved fatal. Baghel was embroiled in so many scams that it landed BJP an unexpected victory and an equally unexpected new CM in Vishnu Deo Sai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is almost a given that the BJP will win all 11 seats this time as the Congress is in tatters. Only the margin of victory remains to be seen. The state government is doing its bit to fulfill Modi ki Guarantee. And it starts with Rs 1000 in the accounts of 70 lakh women in the state on March 10\u00a0just before the moel code of conduct comes into force. That and Rs 3,100 MSP as against the central MSP of Rs 2,250\u00a0 per quintal of paddy procurement are the main issues. In fact, this twin promise over-rides everything else including the Ram Mandir. There have been batches of sponsored Ayodhya visitors from Chhattisgarh but the Mahtari Vandan Yojna (Rs 1,000 for women scheme) and Rs 3,100 MSP will beat any other issue or promise anyone else makes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The state government is doing its bit to fulfill Modi ki Guarantee. And it starts with Rs 1000 in the accounts of 70 lakh women in the state on March 10\u00a0just before the moel code of conduct comes into force. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":504140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Congress re-invests faith in jaded Chhattisgarh leaders for 2024 Lok Sabha elections","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[162562,1497,4,125714],"tags":[143089,111],"yst_prominent_words":[],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2024\/03\/09132217\/Mallikarjun_Kharge_1693555215059_1697506549538-1.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504136"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=504136"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=504136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- html is corrupted -->