Chhattisgarh urban body polls: BJP declares candidates for all 10 mayoral seats

Raipur: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday announced its candidates for all the 10 mayoral posts in Chhattisgarh, the elections for which will be held along with the other urban body polls in the state next month.

Former MP Madhusudan Yadav has been fielded from Rajnandgaon, Meenal Choubey from Raipur, Alka Baghmar from Durg, Puja Vidhani from Bilaspur, Sanjay Pandey from Jagdalpur and Manjusha Bhagat from Ambikapur.

Jagdish Ramu Rohra is the party's candidate for the mayor's post in Dhamtari, Ram Naresh Rai in Chirmiri, Sanju Devi Rajput in Korba and Jeevardhan Chouhan in Raigarh.

State BJP chief Kiran Singh Deo announced names of the candidates at a press conference here in the afternoon.

Madhusudan Yadav served as a corporator and mayor in the past in Rajnandgaon.

He was elected as member of Parliament from Rajnandgaon constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Subsequently, he unsuccessfully contested for Rajnandgaon mayor's seat in the 2014 urban body polls. In 2018, he lost the assembly election from Dongargaon.

Meenal Choubey, who has been fielded for the mayor's post in the Raipur Municipal Corporation, is the incumbent corporator and leader of opposition in the civic body.

Jeevardhan Chouhan, who has been fielded for the post in the Raigarh Municipal Corporation, is secretary of the state BJP's Scheduled Caste unit.

He runs a tea and 'paan' shop in Raigarh.

Elections to 173 civic bodies, comprising 10 municipal corporations, 49 municipal councils and 114 nagar panchayats, will be held in a single phase on February 11, while the three-tier panchayat elections would be conducted in three phases on February 17, 20 and 23.

In the last urban body polls held in 2019-2020, the then ruling Congress in the state got mayoral posts in all the 10 municipal corporations.

Last time, the mayoral polls were held in an indirect manner - with the public directly electing corporators and the latter then electing mayor.

The indirect method was introduced in 2019 by then Bhupesh Baghel government.

This time, the Vishnu Deo Sai government has restored the previous system under which people will directly vote for electing the mayor.