As the Assembly election results placed the BJP far ahead of the Congress in Chhattisgarh, the buzz around the next Chief Minister has started. From the party headquarters in Raipur to Delhi, several names kept doing the rounds even as those leaders themselves kept playing down their prospects.
Chhattisgarh Election Results 2023 | Updates
One such name to emerge was that of O.P. Choudhary, a bureaucrat-turned-politician who registered a resounding win with a margin of over 66,000 from Raigarh. The buzz around Mr. Choudhary, who contested his first election unsuccessfully from the same seat in 2018, started much before the results. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was campaigning for Mr. Choudhary last month, told people of the constituency to send him to the Assembly while the party would take the onus of making him a bada aadmi or a big shot.
His name would also receive the loudest cheer from a cross-section of the party’s cadre gathered at the BJP headquarters in Raipur, more so by the youth. Apart from an administrative experience being a key attribute of Mr. Choudhary, he is an OBC and is said to be enjoying the backing of the party’s national leadership, both factors working in his favour.
As word started doing the rounds about him being called to Delhi by the party’s national leadership, Mr. Choudhary took to X late in the evening, posting “Please do not spread any kind of false rumour about me, it is a humble request to everyone”. Like other candidates, he, not only played down the talks around his prospects in his media interactions, he also listed out several names, including that of former Chief Minister Raman Singh and State party president Arun Sao, both of whom are also said to be in contention owing to their seniority and relative status in the organisational hierarchy.
Key factors
Mr. Sao, who is also an OBC and comes from the numerically powerful Sahu community, has other factors going for him as well. He hails from the Bilaspur region, which holds 24 seats in the 90-member Assembly, making it the biggest of the lot. In Mr. Singh’s case, seniority and experience are considered favourable factors. In the run-up to the elections, the party had spoken of collective leadership and once the results were pouring in, Mr. Singh made a pointed clarification in response to a question when he said that the election was not fought under his leadership. While he said all leaders and workers had worked for it, apart from the national leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi who majorly contributed, he also reminded that people remembered the work done during his tenure.
Two other names to emerge are Union Minister of State Renuka Singh and Vishnu Deo Sai who is a former Union MoS and also someone who has held the State president’s post in the past. They are both tribals, a community that forms nearly 32% of the electorate, and if Ms. Singh makes the cut, she would also be the first woman Chief Minister.
In case of him not being considered, the party would have to provide Dr. Singh a position commensurate with his stature and experience.
