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Jogi's loss is Cong's gain!

Jogi's campaign managers are working on plans to make video cassettes of his message from his hospital bed in Mumbai to woo voters in Mahasamund constituency.

Updated on: Apr 13, 2004 08:10 PM IST
PTI | By , Mahasamund (Chhattisgarh)
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With their leader seriously injured in a road accident, Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi's campaign managers are working on plans to make video cassettes of his message from his hospital bed in Mumbai to woo voters in Mahasamund constituency where he faces BJP candidate and veteran VC Shukla.

They are even desperate to get Jogi at least for a day to the constituency which goes to polls on April 20.

"Since the entire campaign of Congress is concentrated on Jogi, the party workers of Mahasamund want Jogi, who has expressed a desire from the hospital bed to come at least once to the constituency before the polls," Jogi's chief election manager Anil Tah said on Tuesday.

HT Image
HT Image

But that will solely depend on his health condition and the permission of the doctors, Tah said.

He said they were planning to videograph his message from the hospital bed in which he would appeal to the voters to make him victorious and that will be aired in the entire Lok Sabha seat as part of the new strategy.

On Tuesday, a set of audio and video cassettes had been prepared and sent to the constituency made from the last speech Jogi had delivered at Bagbahra town, a day before his accident in the wee hours of Sunday during electioneering when his vehicle collided with a tree in the Gariabandh jungle of Raipur district, he said.

These cassettes have been distributed in large numbers among the workers and voters for airing in all the villages as Jogi physically could not reach out to them.

Expecting a sympathy wave after the accident and in an attempt to encash it, a strategy has been drawn for large scale worships in front of all the local deities and prominent places of all religions of the Mahasamund area for the speedy recovery of Jogi.

Jogi's accident has also made his opponents change their strategy.

Shukla's campaign was based on alleged "reign of terror and corruption" during the previous Congress government headed by Jogi. "But we will not hit Jogi personally now for what he had done since it is not time for politics. We are also praying for his speedy recovery," Shukla's main election manager and his close associate Dr Anil Verma said.

 
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