As the political battle for upcoming assembly elections intensifies after the recent Sonia Gandhi-Narendra Modi's face off in the Naxal heartland of Bastar, now Rahul Gandhi is set to take forward the spirited campaign of Congress in the state. Congress Vice President will woo tribal voters during his two rallies in Rajnandgaon and Kanker on Friday.
In the wake of recent Maoist threats to the tribals to not vote for politicians and MHA alert that an organised Naxal attack may take place during elections, the community has been apprehensive to vote. Quick to cash in on this opportunity, Congress has been addressing the community living in fear as Naxals issue in the state is perhaps the only strong basis for them to attack the Raman singh government and shake the confidence of voters in BJP- otherwise popular among the people.
"The Chhattisgarh government only talks big when it comes to security but hardly does anything. Tribals feel unsafe due to the atrocities. The Congress had to sacrifice many leaders due to Naxalism. We miss them. If you vote for Congress, we will get rehabilitation schemes for you," said Sonia Gandhi while addressing a rally at Chhattisgarh's Kondagaon in Bastar on Thursday.
On September 27, Rahul Gandhi had addressed a rally in Jagdalpur, 43 kms away from where Naxals had ambushed a convoy of Congress leaders killing 27 people. He had slammed Raman Singh for taking central funds worth Rs 10,000 crore for development of state and then changing the name of the schemes to portray it was state government's brainchild.
Notably, for those who can't recognise their CM by name, Raman Singh is referred to as 'chawal waley baba' for the trademark Food Bill his govt has implemented in the state. Chhattisgarh’s average family has four members, each family (of four) is entitled to a cumulative 20 kg of food grain, but the State government has allocated 35 kg of food grain for each family.
Raman Singh and Rahul Gandhi have more often sparred over one taking the credit of food security policy from the other. Opposition parties have attributed the credit of Food Security policy to Rahul Gandhi for coming up with National Food Security Bill first.
After Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, Congress' spearheaded drive to stop BJP for winning in the state for the third consecutive time will also see Manmohan Singh addressing people in Raipur on November 9.
Eighteen Maoist-affected constituencies in the eight districts of Bastar, Bijapur, Kondagaon, Sukma, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Kanker and Rajnandgaon will go to polls in the first phase, while the rest of the 72 constituencies will go to polls during the second phase on November 19.
Chhattisgarh has a total of 1,67,97,368 voters and 21,418 polling booths have been set up to elect a 90-member state assembly. Taking a serious note of the Maoist threat, the Centre has sent an additional 400 companies (40,000 personnel) of paramilitary forces to ensure peaceful polling.
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