Chhattisgarh polls: BJP eyeing whitewash, Cong wants to turn tide

Union minister Charandas Mahant and BJP state unit president Vishnu Deo Sai are among prominent candidates who will be slugging out to tame their rivals when the last batch of seven Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh go to polls in the final phase tomorrow.

The polling will be held for Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Janjgir-Champa (SC), Raigarh (ST), Surguja and Korba constituencies tomorrow wherein 1,18,10,256 voters are expected to decide the fate of 153 candidates including fifteen women.

Mahant, the sitting MP of Congress from Korba seat and Union Minister of state for Agriculture and Food Processing, will be facing BJP's Banshilal Mahto in a tough contest.

This seat came into existence in 2008 and the first Lok Sabha election there was held there in the next year.

Korba was the only seat Congress had won in 2009 wherein the BJP lapped up the remaining ten.

This time, BJP is eyeing a whitewash by wresting this lone bastion from Congress on development issues and "Modi-Raman wave" whereas Congress is confident of victory on its previous performance.

In 2009, Mahant had defeated BJP candidate and niece of former prime minister Karuna Shukla by a margin of 41,400 votes. Shukla has since defected to Congress.

Korba's neighbouring Raigarh (ST) seat is also in the spotlight for a direct fight between BJP's state unit chief and sitting MP Vishnu Deo Sai and Congress' Aarti Singh.

Sai had previously defeated Hridayaram Rathiya of Congress by a margin of 55,848 votes from this seat.