RAIPUR: The Congress on Sunday released its third list of candidates for the remaining seven seats for the Chhattisgarh assembly elections, renominating the party's two sitting MLAs and denying tickets to four incumbent legislators.
With this, the ruling party has announced its candidates for all the 90 assembly constituencies in the state, which will see voting in two phases on November 7 and 17. Votes will be counted on December 3.
The party has denied tickets to 22 of 71 sitting Congress MLAs this time.
Of the seven seats, one each is reserved for the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste categories.
The ruling party, striving for a comeback in Chhattisgarh, has not re-nominated 22 sitting legislators.
The Congress seems to have worked out caste arithmetic in its selection process with 29 candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) that the party has fielded.
According to the Congress insiders, the final decision on the selection of candidates was taken based on the people’s feedback and the party’s internal survey.
In the first list the Congress already fielded big guns, including Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, his cabinet colleagues and other senior leaders. The party declared its second list of 53 candidates last Wednesday.
Candidates belonging to the Other Backward Class (OBC) have been fielded in three of the other five general seats.
Four women candidates, including a sitting MLA, are on the Congress' third list.
Sitting MLAs Ambica Singh Deo, the granddaughter of the erstwhile king of Koriya, and Kuldeep Juneja have been fielded from their incumbent seats Baikunthpur and Raipur North, respectively.
The candidates who have been fielded in place of four sitting legislators are Chaturi Nand (Saraipali-SC), Ambika Markam (Sihwaha), Sandeep Sahu (Kasdol) and Rashmi Chandrakar (Mahasamund).
The party has fielded Omkar Sahu from the Dhamtari seat which it could not win in the 2018 elections.
Of these five candidates, except for ex-MLA Markam, the others are new faces.
Sandeep Sahu is chairman of the Congress-governed state's Telghani Vikas Board, while Omkar Sahu is chairman of Krishi Upaj Mandi Samiti Dhamtari.
Rashmi Chandrakar is the president of the Mahasamund district unit of Congress.
Of the 90 candidates from Congress, 33 are from ST, 29 from OBC, 10 from SC and 15 from general categories, while three are minorities.
The BJP has so far announced candidates for 86 seats.
The Congress registered a landslide victory in the 2018 polls winning 68 seats, and comfortably formed the government.
The BJP was reduced to 15 seats, while the JCC (J) and the BSP bagged 5 and 2 seats, respectively.
The current strength of the Congress is 71.
The Congress has set a target of winning 75 seats this time, according to party leaders.
(With inputs from PTI)
