Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, will speak at two rallies on Thursday in the Bastar division of Chhattisgarh, where voting will take place in the first phase on November 7. Shah will be making his second trip to the state, which is governed by the Congress, since the 90-member assembly elections were announced. On October 16, the former BJP president, a crucial member of the party’s polling team, spoke to a rally in Rajnandgaon.
The Union minister will attend a public meeting and nomination rally at Lalbagh Maidan in Jagdalpur, he said.
Later, Shah will travel to Kondagaon, where he will participate in a second election meeting and a nominating rally at Police Ground. Kondagaon and Jagdalpur are both located in the Naxal-affected Bastar region of the state. 20 assembly segments will hold voting in the first round: Konta, Bijapur, Dantewada, Chitrakot, Jagdalpur, Bastar, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Keshkal, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Antagarh, Mohla-Manpur, Khujji, Dongargaon, Rajnandgaon, Dongargarh, Khairagarh, Kawardha, and Pandariya.
The second phase will cover the remaining 70 seats. For 83 of the 90 seats, the ruling Congress has so far announced candidates. All 20 seats going to the polls in the first phase are among the 86 seats for which the opposition BJP has declared candidates. In the 2018 elections, the Congress won 68 out of the 90 seats, registering a resounding victory. The JCC (J) and the BSP won 5 and 2 seats, respectively, while the BJP, which had ruled the state for 15 years (2003–2018), was reduced to 5 seats. The Congress currently has 71 members in the assembly.