Chhattisgarh polls: CPI surprises by announcing 5 candidates’ names

Raipur, Oct 22: Less than a week after the Communist Party of India (CPI) announced its alliance with Ajit Jogi's Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) for the upcoming Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, the former on Saturday, October 20, revealed names of five contestants for the two-phase election, leaving many surprised.

It was being said that the CPI was given just two seats after it joined the grand alliance between the JCC and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the elections. It was agreed that the CPI would field candidates from the two seats of Dantewada and Konta and in lieu of that, the Left party and its affiliated labour unions would campaign for the JCC-BSP candidates in some constituencies. However, the CPI's announcement of five candidates now has raised fresh questions.

The five candidates that the CPI have announced are: Mangal Ram Kashyap from Jagdalpur; Ramchandra Nag from Kondagaon; Radhika Sori from Keshkala; Nandram Sori from Dantewada and Manish Kunjam from Kota, said a report in Naidunia.

Chhattisgarh will go to elections on November 12 and 20 and the counting of the votes will take place on December 11. Four other states - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Telangana are also going to polls around the same time.

In the 2013 elections, the CPI contested in 13 seats but failed to win a single seat. It polled over 86,000 votes and had a vote share of 0.7 per cent. The figure was worse than its show in the 2008 and 2003 elections respectively when it got 1.1 per cent vote share. It though failed to win a single seat on both those occasions.

Can the CPI gain from Mayawati and Jogi magic given the fact that everything is fine with its alliance with the BSP-JCC tie-up?