Khairagarh by-poll today
| Date :12-Apr-2022 |
Staff Reporter
Raipur,
The fate of ten candidates in fray for Khairagarh by-election will be sealed in EVMs on Tuesday. As many as 14 candidates filed their nominations for Khairagarh by-election, out of which 12 were accepted by the Returning Officer after scrutiny of nominations. Out of 12, two candidates withdrew their nominations, leaving 10 candidates in fray.
Voting for the by-poll will be held from 7 am and to 5 pm. All arrangements for voting have been made by the district administration. Voting will take place at 291 polling stations set up in the constituency. Keeping in mind the security, a large number of police forces will
be deployed.
It may be recalled that after the death of MLA Devwrat Singh in November, 2021, the by-election was necessitated in Khairagarh.
According to the information, 2,11,516 voters are registered in Khairagarh assembly constituency, including 1,06,266 male voters and 1,05,250 female voters. Of these, 1,612 voters are more than
80 years old and new voters are 3752. The number of Divyang voters is 1011 and 89 service voters. The 291 polling booths include 8 auxiliary booths, 53 highly sensitive, 11 sensitive and 86
politically sensitive. In the 2018 Khairagarh assembly elections, both BJP and Congress were defeated by JCC-J candidate Devvrat Singh. BJP candidate Komal Jangel stood second as he lost by 870 votes to Devvrat Singh. While this by-poll is a prestige issue for the Congress government, BJP has left no stone unturned to ensure victory and it can be gauged from the fact that the party had called two Union Ministers in the form of Prahlad Singh Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste, and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to campaign in favour of Komal Janghel. Congress, however, did not call its national leader as Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel kept a vigil on the campaigning for Yoshada Verma.
Even as the senior BJP leaders, including former Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, claimed a direct fight between BJP and Congress in Khairagarh and his party is winning by a margin of 30000 votes, political experts feel that Janta Congress Chhattisgarh –Jogi (JCC-J) candidate Narendra Soni makes the fight triangular. It may be mentioned, almost all the MLAs and Ministers of Congress government camped in Khairagarh to woo the voters in favour of Yashoda Verma.
The Chief Minister announced that if the Congress candidate wins in Khairagarh, then within 24 hours a formal announcement will be made to make Khairagarh a district.
The opposition party BJP also wants to win the Khairagarh by-election in any case to give a message for the 2023 Assembly elections in the state. The victory in Khairagarh will be a morale boosting factor for BJP. Moreover, the main Opposition BJP will want to give the message that the Congress has lost the faith of the public and it will impact the results of the 2023 Assembly elections. Therefore, the BJP put all its efforts for Khairagarh by-election. 40 top leaders of the state BJP campaigned in Khairagarh. The Leader of Opposition in the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly Dharamlal Kaushik even claimed that Congress-free Chhattisgarh in the 2023 election will start from here in Khairagarh in a recent statement.
