Lok Sabha election 2019: Chhattisgarh’s Bastar is polling in first phase

The grand old party returned to power after 15 years in Chhattisgarh in a landslide victory as it promised to waive farm loans and empower the weaker sections and backward communities.

The Congress party is looking to wrest Bastar, one of the 11 parliamentary constituencies in Chhattisgarh, which is polling on Thursday in the first phase of the Lok Sabha election 2019 riding on its massive win in the state polls last year.

A voter shows her finger marked with indelible ink after casting vote during the first phase of the general elections, at a polling station on Thursday, April 11. (PTI)

The grand old party returned to power after 15 years in Chhattisgarh in a landslide victory as it promised to waive farm loans and empower the weaker sections and backward communities. It wants to retain the momentum from the assembly polls, in which it won a two-thirds majority. The BJP is aiming to highlight the policies of the central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who remains popular.

Seven candidates are in the fray in the Bastar Lok Sabha seat as Congress candidate Deepak Baij is fighting against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Baiduram Kashyap.

This tribal dominated reserved constituency has been won by the BJP in the last three Lok Sabha polls but in 2018 assembly elections, the Congress swept the region. The BJP dropped its sitting member of Parliament Dinesh Kashyap and opted for Kashyap, who had lost to Baij in the 2018 state polls from the Chirakot assembly seat.

Maoists triggered an IED blast on Thursday morning in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district, which comes under the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency. No one was hurt, officials said.

The votes will be counted on May 23.