Congress faces uphill task of preventing another BJP near sweep in Chhattisgarh

Months after losing the Assembly polls, the Congress entered the Lok Sabha poll ring in Chhattisgarh to put that loss behind it and improve on its 2019 tally of two seats. Four constituencies in Chhattisgarh voted in the first two phases and the remaining seven will go to the polls on Tuesday. These are Raipur, the state capital, Bilaspur, Korba, Durg, the SC-reserved Janjgir-Champa, and the two ST-reserved seats of Raigarh and Sarguja.

The uphill task that awaits the Congress is encapsulated by the fact that the BJP won 10 of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections and even after losing the Assembly polls in 2018 it managed to win nine of the 11 constituencies last time around.

The BJP’s campaign was heavily dependent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed rallies in Janjgir-Champa and Sarguja, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who addressed rallies in Korba, Janjgir-Champam and Bemetara (for the Durg seat). For the Congress, its former president Rahul Gandhi addressed a rally in Bilaspur and Priyanka Gandhi spoke at a public meeting in Chirmiri (for Korba).

Of these seven seats, a close contest is expected in Korba and Janjgir-Champa. In the latter, a primarily agrarian constituency that the BJP has held since 2004, farmers have benefitted from the policies of the former Congress government and the Opposition party currently controls all eight Assembly segments.

Here, the Congress has fielded its top Scheduled Caste (SC) leader and former minister Shivkumar Dahariya, who lost his Assembly seat last year. To ensure there is no anti-incumbency, the BJP dropped its sitting MP Guharam Ajgalley and gave the ticket to Kamlesh Jangde, a former sarpanch. As in 2019, when the BJP beat the Congress by