BJP workers celebrate as counting progresses.
Credit: PTI Photo
The 2023 Chhattisgarh Assembly election results have once again proved how hard it is to gauge the people’s pulse. While almost all exit polls predicted that Congress would come back to power in the central Indian state, the people’s mandate is now heavily leaning towards the BJP.
Early trends did give the Congress a glimmer of hope, but they were soon quashed as counting progressed. In this context, here we present you key takeaways from the Chhattisgarh Assembly election results:
Following its Karnataka model, the Congress had announced a number of guarantees in their Chhattisgarh poll manifesto. However, this time it seems the magic did not work.
Bhupesh Baghel, the incumbent CM, was trailing behind his nephew Ajay Baghel during the early stages of counting, which only revealed that support for the BJP has increased in Chhattisgarh. However, Baghel later took the lead again and is currently leading by 10996 votes.
There was no clear CM face from the BJP for Chhattisgarh, but still they managed to take a comfortable lead, which means either there were growing resentments against the Congress, or the poll guarantees announced by PM Modi a few days ahead of elections did the trick for the BJP in Chhattisgarh.
Former BJP ministers who had lost the 2018 elections are also leading in their respective constituencies, which only goes to show the strong pro-BJP sentiments in the state.
According to a report by The Hindu, the degree of Naxal influence on polling in the state has decreased considerably, which has led to lesser number of votes on NOTA, and this could’ve been a factor behind the BJP surging ahead in the Chhattisgarh polls. Several alleged scams, like the liquor scam, the Mahadev betting app case, and the rice milling special incentive scam might have played a role in the elections as well.