The decision of the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J), led by former chief minister Ajit Jogi, to withdraw from the Lok Sabha poll arena in Chhattisgarh, is likely to improve the prospects of the ruling Congress party in the state.
JCC (J) leader Amit Jogi, on April 2, announced that the party will not contest the April-May Lok Sabha polls. The party’s alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has, therefore, decided to slug it out in all 11 seats of the state that will see polling in three phases—April 11, 18 and 23.
The junior Jogi stated that the party’s all-out efforts would be to defeat the BJP in all 11 seats. Certainly, that spells good news for the Congress party.
Because, even if the Jogi Congress, as it is popularly termed, might not be able to ensure the defeat of BJP by itself, its decision to not contest is likely to swing back some more votes to the Congress. Congress, which is already energised after the thumping 2018 assembly poll victory, seems all set to win more than half a dozen seats in the polls. Congress won 68 out of the 90 assembly seats. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, it managed to win just one (Charandas Mahant from Korba seat, who is currently speaker of the Chhattisgarh state assembly).
In the assembly elections, Jogi Congress performed poorer than it expected, managing to win just five out of the 55 seats it contested. Ally BSP managed just two out of 35 in the 90-member house. Political experts say that while the apparent intention of not contesting the polls is to shift its votes to the BSP, the votes actually might swing only to Congress.
Seven to four?
“Already, several ex-MLAs who had shifted camp to JCC (J) from the Congress are back to the parent party. Jogi Congress showed little impact in Assembly polls and was likely to be quite insignificant in the Lok Sabha Polls anyway,” Mohan Rao, veteran journalist and political analyst says.
Rao says that the Congress might manage to win seven out of 11 seats this time, with only core urban seats like Raipur, Bilaspur, Durg and others like Janjgir and Kanker likely to be retained by BJP. Amit Jogi, meanwhile, tried to explain the decision of not contesting by saying that the regional party was formed with the intention of ensuring development and welfare of people of Chhattisgarh. At the national level, the objective is to ‘defeat forces engaged in spreading hatred and communalism in the country’, he said.
He said the JCC (J) would contest civic bodies, three-tier panchayat and student union elections in the state in future.
