C'garh LS poll: BJP drops former CM's son and Rajnandgaon MP

The BJP Sunday announced candidates for six Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, including high profile Rajnandgaon and Raipur.

The other four seats are Bilaspur, Mahasamund, Korba and Durg.

On March 21, it had announced names for five other seats. The state has 11 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The BJP, which received a severe drubbing at the hands of the Congress in the 2018 Assembly polls, dropped five sitting MPs, including former chief minister Raman Singh's son Abhishek from Rajnandgaon and former Union minister of state Ramesh Bais from Raipur.

State unit general secretary Santosh Pandey, who has an RSS background, has been fielded from Rajnandgaon while state party vice president Sunil Soni will contest from Raipur.

Soni was formerly Raipur mayor and chairman of the Raipur Development Authority.

Other sitting MPs who do not figure in the final list are Chandulal Sahu from Mahasamund, Lakhanlal Sahu from Bilaspur and Banshilal Mahto from Korba.

In Mahasamund, Chunnilal Sahu, a former MLA from Khallari, has been given the ticket while in Durg, former MLA Vijay Baghel will try his political luck.

Baghel had defeated Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel from Patan in the 2008 Assembly polls.

Arun Sao, a lawyer, and Jyotinand Dubey, both fresh faces, have been fielded from Bilaspur and Korba seats respectively.

Chhattisgarh will see polling on April 11, 18 and 23.

In the last three Lok Sabha polls in 2004, 2009 and 2014, BJP had won 10 out of 11 seats.

Durg was the only seat the Congress managed to win in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.