In Chhattisgarh’s two key tribal LS seats, how BSP, CPI, smaller outfits dented Congress

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Communist Party of India (CPI), and tribal parties Hamar Raj and Sarva Adi Dal, which were established last year and contested their first Lok Sabha elections, polled more votes than the BJP’s victory margins BJP over the Congress in the tribal reserved seats of Kanker and Bastar in Chhattisgarh.

After losing Kanker to the BJP in 2019 by 6,914 votes, the Congress renominated its candidate Biresh Thakur for a second time but he lost to the new candidate, Bhojraj Nag, by just 1,884 votes this time. Kanker had always seen a bipolar contest between the Congress and the BJP but the BSP has played spoilsport both times by polling more votes than the victory margin. In 2019, BSP got 10,124 votes and in the latest election, it polled 11,170 votes.

The Hamar Raj and the Sarva Adi Dal also polled more votes than the victory margin. Hamar Raj party led by former Union Minister Arvind Netam, who was earlier with the Congress — along with his wife held the same seat five times from 1980 to 1998 — got 5,009 votes. The Sarva Adi Dal, a party formed by Chhattisgarh Christian Forum president Arun Panalal that was vocal against violence on Christian tribals polled 8,949 votes.

In Bastar, NOTA was the third-most chosen option with 36,758 people opting for it. The NOTA’s share of the total valid votes polled was 3.65%, down from 4.56% in 2019.

Meanwhile, the CPI and the BSP together polled more votes — CPI polled 35,887 votes and the BSP 19,647 — than the 55,245-vote victory margin of the BJP’s Mahesh Kashyap. He defeated former minister Kawasi Lakhma of the Congress.

The vote share of the BJP shot up from 39.79 % in 2019 to 45.5% in 2024, while for Congress whose candidate Deepak Baij won the seat in 2019 the