PremiumNew Delhi: For Naxal-hit Chhattisgarh, which grapples not just with Left Wing Extremism (LWE), but a massive healthcare crisis as well, the outcome of the exit polls and the subsequent Lok Sabha election results will chart out the fate of the state for the next five years.
However, in what spells bad news for the new Congress government in the state, News 24’s Today’s Chanakya exit polls assigned a seat share of 9 (+/-2) seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party, and just 2 (+/-2) seats to the Congress party, India Today-Axis assigned 7-8 seats to BJP and 3-4 to Congress. Likewise, Times Now VMR also assigned 7 seats to BJP and 4 to Congress.
The recently concluded assembly elections in the state led to a massive poll drubbing for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with three time chief minister Raman Singh, being replaced by a Congress-led government.
For the newly minted Congress government, the Lok Sabha polls are a litmus test to the support they wielded during the assembly polls. While the BJP at present holds 10 out of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the Congress is looking at wresting control on at least eight of them.
“We have already fulfilled 18 out of 36 promises in the first 100 days. We are aware of the pulse of the people and the problems they faced under the BJP. We are confident that we will win at least 8-9 seats, if not more," Shailesh Trivedi, senior Congress leader in Chhattisgarh, told Mint.
For the Congress party, which had lost its state leadership to a Naxal attack in 2013, these elections will prove to be a litmus test for the party, while also giving the party a fair roadmap for the next five years in the state.
While former CM Raman Singh maintained that the patterns of both elections were different, with the issues also varying greatly, he said that, “This time the question is who will be the Prime Minister. In places even like Bastar, because of the brand of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the voter turnout was close to 60%. So we are hoping that the result of the Lok Sabha elections will be good for us."
