By Neeraj Mishra

The main parties in Chhattisgarh, the BJP and the Congress, have announced their list of candidates in batches for the 2023 Assembly elections. There is nothing surprising in either list, in fact, there is a lot in common.

The 2023 elections will witness almost a similar match up as in 2018. The Congress has repeated more than 50 of its 70 MLAs while the BJP has repeated 11 of its 13 and given tickets to another 15 who had lost five years ago.

So the BJP is taking the field with 49 old faces while the Congress is seeking to return to power with 55 in an Assembly of 90 MLAs. What is, however, common to both sides is those repeated are all ministers, ex-ministers and generally the affluent lot. Those with less money in their bank accounts and fewer properties have been ignored. It’s a battle of the corrupt and the corruptible.

It was expected that Congress will not repeat at least 20 of its 70 sitting MLAs as a political stratagem to combat the anti-incumbency factor. It has done so but in a brilliant brainwave, its leadership is convinced that only the poorer of its MLAs have an anti-incumbency factor working against them! So it has repeated all its 13 ministers, the Speaker and even those MLAs who are under Enforcement Directorate scanner for corruption. Some of the ministers like Shiv Deharia, Jaisingh Agarwal and Ravindra Choubey are unpopular in their constituencies over allegations of having reaped riches in office.

Those who have been left out to dry include one former minister Premsai Singh and three others whose candidature was not acceptable to Deputy CM TS Singhdeo. Of these, Brihaspati Singh, an ST MLA, had levelled serious charges of  attempt to murder against Singhdeo. Of the 18 sitting MLAs who have been dropped, most come from the SC/ST communities and have held no position of power, and have not been involved in any scam. Only one MLA facing the ED heat Chandra Dev Rai has been denied the Congress ticket. The clear message is that affluent politicians can either buy their way through or cannot be denied because they have built a strong network of other gratified fellows.

Strangely enough, this syndrome affects the BJP more than the Congress. Brijmohan Agarwal, who is contesting his 10th election from the same seat in Raipur, had been extremely unpopular within the BJP for his proximity to Baghel. He had been currying favours with Baghel and has remained ensconced in his old ministerial bungalow for the past five years much to the chagrin of the BJP state leadership. But Agarwal comes from an affluent background and cannot be denied.

So does another BJP moneybag from Bilaspur, former excise minister Amar Agarwal, who lost in 2018. He is the son of former BJP heavyweight late Lakhiram Agarwal and runs a vast empire of gutka and gudakhu. So does Rajesh Mudat who has been repeated despite his defeat in 2018 from Raipur. He comes from the affluent Jain community and is capable of spending for at least two constituencies. 

While the BJP has attempted to dust off allegations of nepotism and parivarwad by denying tickets to progeny, the Congress has not held back. Amitesh Shukla, the son of former chief minister Shyama Charan Shukla, will be contesting his sixth straight election from Rajim and Arun Vora, the son of another former CM Motilal Vora will be contesting his fourth. Pankaj Sharma, the son of former minister Satyanarain Sharma, has been given the ticket but only after his father decided to step aside for him.

Another interesting aside is that more than 125 of the 180 candidates from both parties reside in Raipur and only travel to their constituency during elections. So much for people’s representation.

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