Four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwarts in Chhattisgarh are spending sleepless nights. They appeared more worried than the candidates for whom they had worked as election “commander”. For, the positive Lok Sabha election results would give a new lease of political life.
The four leaders include former Chhattisgarh Assembly Speaker Dharamlal Kaushik, state’s former home minister Nankiram Kanwar, former ministers Ramvichar Netam and Hemchand Yadav. They lost the November Assembly election in November; putting their political fate in a balance.
Ironically, the four leaders pulled all the strings to bag the Lok Sabha ticket from their respective area and contest the general election. But the BJP did not expressed confidence on the state poll “losers” and denied tickets. Instead, they were asked to command the electioneering in their respective constituency.
While Kaushik was made the election campaign in-charge in Bilaspur Lok Sabha constituency, Kanwar was asked to head campaign in Korba. Netam and Yadav were made election campaign in-charge in Sarguja and Kanker Lok Sabha constituencies respectively.
The four leaders, whose defeat in the state polls just a few months ago shocked and jolted the party, had been asked to ensure comfortably victory of party candidate. The leaders did not leave any stone un-turn during the campaign trials. But the task given had been no easy.
In Bilaspur, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece Karuna Shukla is contesting as Congress candidate while in Korba, union minister Charandas Mahant is in the fray. Even in Kanker and Sarguja, BJP candidates had faced a tough fight from their Congress counterpart.
An adverse result in these constituencies would mean another negative mark for the leaders. And a favourable would put them in the race to get a post of chairman when chief minister Raman Singh would reconstitute the state-run boards and corporations after the general election result.
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