KANKER/NARAYANPUR: Former Chhattisgarh CM Ajit Jogi may have extracted his pound of fl esh from the party leadership, but he appears to have failed to strike a chord with Congress nominees in Maoist-dominated Bastar that has 12 assembly seats.
No ground-level party workers or candidate will say this of a man who as CM allegedly ran the party like his personal fi ef. Yet, his absence from posters in constituencies like Kanker, Keshkal, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Jagdalpur say a lot about his equations with the local unit. Twelve Assembly seats of Bastar region and six of Rajnandgaon district will go to polls on November 11.
Besides the party candidate's photograph, these carry pictures of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, PCC chief Charan Das Mahant, senior party leader B K Hariprasad and others. So, why is Jogi missing? The answer probably lies in the doubts over the killing of Mahendra Karma, Congress' formidable leader and founder of the Salwa Judum.
Karma, a household name in the region, was killed with senior party leaders including then PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and V C Shukla by Maoists at Darbha Ghati, Dantewada, in May. This had led an angry Congress leadership lashing out at the state's BJP government. Sonia and Rahul had admonished state offi -cials in the Raipur secretariat for not being mindful of the threats Karma faced.
The charge against the BJP government is repeated in Congress pamphlets. But, the offi cial narrative runs into a direct collision with suspicion that Congress workers harbour about the role of a Congress MLA and Jogi loyalist, Kawasi Lakhma, in the Maoist ambush. Lakhma was part of the convoy but the ultras spared him, raising suspicion.
That Jogi did not enjoy the best of equations with Karma thickened the air of intrigue. The suspicion seems to be strong enough to force the Congress leadership to deemphasize Jogi's role in the region. A party worker, supervising the campaign of Kanker's Congress candidate Shankar Dhruva, confi rmed that the exclusion of Jogi from posters was cleared by senior leaders.
He said the party couldn't afford to seek votes in the area in Jogi's name, more so after what happened to Karma. Although the posters blame BJP for the circumstances that led to decimation of the state Congress' leadership, fact remains that 11 of 12 seats in the region went to the BJP in 2008.
Lakhma is the only Congress MLA from Bastar — a 40,000-sq km Maoist stronghold (bigger than Kerala). Except for Jagdalpur, all 11 are reserved ST seats. Lakhma is again contesting from Konta. Party workers in Narayanpur — the district comprising the infamous 'liberated zone' Abujhmad, where Maoists have the last word — expressed similar sentiments. They demanded that Jogi not be sent for manifesto release functions in Bastar.
No ground-level party workers or candidate will say this of a man who as CM allegedly ran the party like his personal fi ef. Yet, his absence from posters in constituencies like Kanker, Keshkal, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Jagdalpur say a lot about his equations with the local unit. Twelve Assembly seats of Bastar region and six of Rajnandgaon district will go to polls on November 11.
Besides the party candidate's photograph, these carry pictures of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, PCC chief Charan Das Mahant, senior party leader B K Hariprasad and others. So, why is Jogi missing? The answer probably lies in the doubts over the killing of Mahendra Karma, Congress' formidable leader and founder of the Salwa Judum.
Karma, a household name in the region, was killed with senior party leaders including then PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and V C Shukla by Maoists at Darbha Ghati, Dantewada, in May. This had led an angry Congress leadership lashing out at the state's BJP government. Sonia and Rahul had admonished state offi -cials in the Raipur secretariat for not being mindful of the threats Karma faced.
The charge against the BJP government is repeated in Congress pamphlets. But, the offi cial narrative runs into a direct collision with suspicion that Congress workers harbour about the role of a Congress MLA and Jogi loyalist, Kawasi Lakhma, in the Maoist ambush. Lakhma was part of the convoy but the ultras spared him, raising suspicion.
That Jogi did not enjoy the best of equations with Karma thickened the air of intrigue. The suspicion seems to be strong enough to force the Congress leadership to deemphasize Jogi's role in the region. A party worker, supervising the campaign of Kanker's Congress candidate Shankar Dhruva, confi rmed that the exclusion of Jogi from posters was cleared by senior leaders.
He said the party couldn't afford to seek votes in the area in Jogi's name, more so after what happened to Karma. Although the posters blame BJP for the circumstances that led to decimation of the state Congress' leadership, fact remains that 11 of 12 seats in the region went to the BJP in 2008.
Lakhma is the only Congress MLA from Bastar — a 40,000-sq km Maoist stronghold (bigger than Kerala). Except for Jagdalpur, all 11 are reserved ST seats. Lakhma is again contesting from Konta. Party workers in Narayanpur — the district comprising the infamous 'liberated zone' Abujhmad, where Maoists have the last word — expressed similar sentiments. They demanded that Jogi not be sent for manifesto release functions in Bastar.
No comments:
Post a Comment