Chhattisgarh polls: Maoist violence as voting begins in first phase

mangaloretoday.com

Bastar, Nov 11: A Congress candidate and three security personnel were injured in separate clashes in Chhattisgarh where 18 constituencies, mainly in Maoist strongholds, went to polls today, marking the start of state polls seen as a semi-final before next year’s national election.

An encounter broke out between Maoists and the Border Security Force or BSF in the Kanker in Bastar this morning. Firing went on for nearly half an hour.

A youth Congress leader contesting from Jagdalpur was injured in clashes last night. Shamu Kashyap, said to have been handpicked as a candidate by Rahul Gandhi, alleges that he was attacked by BJP workers when he was traveling.

 

"Four or five cars chased us. One car blocked our way. Some BJP workers came and beat me," said Mr Kashyap, who is in hospital. The BJP, however, alleged that their workers had been beaten by Congress members.

Earlier, a BSF jawan was injured in a blast in Kanker and two personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were injured in a landmine blast in Rajnandgaon.

Polling is taking place in the Bastar and Rajnandgaon districts, which are among those worst affected by Maoist violence. Maoists had put up posters in the state, calling for the boycott of the assembly elections

Chief Minister Raman Singh and his three ministers in the state’s BJP government are among 143 candidates whose fate will be decided by some 2,9,33,200 eligible to vote in the first of the two-phase polls to the 90-member assembly.

The BJP holds 15 of the seats going to polls today, while Congress has three.

Raman Singh, who is aiming at a hat-trick against the Congress, is contesting from Rajnandgaon. The chief minister’s main rival is Congress’ Alka Mudliyar, wife of Congress leader Uday Mudliyar, who was killed in one of the worst Maoist killings in the state just six months ago.

The Chief Minister had defeated Uday Mudliyar with a margin of 32,389 votes in the last election.

On May 25, Maoists had ambushed a convoy of Congress leaders in Bastar, killing 27 people and virtually wiping out the entire party leadership, including state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son Dinesh, tribal leader Mahendra Karma who had founded the Salwa Judum, besides Uday Mudliyar. Senior leader Vidya Charan Shukla, 84, died of his injuries two weeks later.

Devati Karma, wife of Mahendra Karma, has been fielded from Dantewada-ST seat.

The Naxal ambush has been raked up repeatedly during campaigning in the southern part of the state, which saw high-profile visits by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi as well as Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Police personnel are keeping a hawk eye in the state and along its borders with Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. At least 85,000 personnel from central paramilitary forces have been deployed on poll duty in the state.

"We have unprecedented security for Bastar, to encourage people to come out and vote," said Arun Dev Gautam, Inspector General, Bastar.

Security forces have been directed to sanitise school buildings and other premises to be used for polling in hyper-sensitive areas. The other precautionary orders given to security forces, particularly to those who have arrived from other states for conducting polls, are to not venture into forest areas in search of mobile phone signals and to go to restrooms with security cover, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.

The rest of the state will go to polls on November 19