Raipur: Hamar Raj Party (HRP), an outfit floated recently by tribal groups in Chhattisgarh, on Tuesday declared a list of 19 candidates, including a retired IPS officer, for the next month's assembly elections.
Of these 19 seats, 10 are reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates and two for Scheduled Caste (SC) categories.
Among the candidates announced by HRP, two belong to the SC category while the rest 17 are tribals; three candidates are women. The party has also given tickets to tribals in the general seats.
Elections to the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly will be held in two phases on November 7 and 17.
The HRP was floated by Sarva Adivasi Samaj (SAS), an umbrella organisation of tribal groups. It had earlier announced to field candidates on 50 seats, including all 29 seats reserved for ST community, but now it is mulling to contest on 60-70 seats.
The list of 19 candidates was released at a press conference by SAS working president BS Rawte.
'The HRP is planning to contest 60-70 seats as people are voluntarily joining us and urging us to field candidates in more constituencies,' Rawte said.
He claimed that the people of Chhattisgarh are fed up with the ruling Congress and erstwhile ruler BJP.
'We are hoping that people, particularly from tribal areas, will give their mandate to us,' he added.
Rawte said the SAS has entered the poll arena for the first time and started a fight for the rights of tribals and against their exploitation. 'For us, electoral victory or defeat is secondary'.
The HRP has fielded Akbar Ram Korram, a retired Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, from the Bhanupratappur (ST) constituency.
Korram had unsuccessfully contested the bypoll from the Bhanupratappur seat last year which was won by Congress candidate Savitri Mandavi Verma, the wife of MLA and deputy speaker of state assembly Manoj Mandavi whose death had necessitated the byelection.
Korram had polled 23,417 votes in the bypoll.
Among the other candidates on the HRP list are Geeta Sonha, a member of Surajpur Zila Panchayat, and former school principal Bhawani Singh Sidar. They will contest from the Pratappur (ST) and Kharsia constituencies, respectively.
Most of the candidates are prominent social workers from their areas, according to Rawte.
Out of the 90 constituencies in Chhattisgarh, 29 are reserved for STs and 10 for SCs.
In the 2018 assembly polls, Congress registered a landslide victory by bagging 68 seats and comfortably forming the government. The BJP was reduced to 15 seats, while the JCC (J) and the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 5 and 2 seats, respectively.
The current strength of the Congress in the assembly is 71.
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