BJP fields bizman against Dy CM TS Singhdeo, richest Chhattisgarh candidate

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, October 25

The BJP on Wednesday pitted a businessman opposite erstwhile royal and Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister TS Singhdeo in the high-profile Ambikapur seat.

Rajesh Agarwal, former Lakhanpur Nagar Panchayat chairman and member of BJP’s Surguja district executive committee, has been fielded to take on erstwhile royal and three-term MLA Singhdeo, who is also the richest candidate in the state. Agarwal, a businessman by profession, had switched over from the Congress to the BJP ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections. Agarwal’s name featured in the list of final four candidates the BJP today announced for the November 7 and 17 Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, naming all 90 nominees.

A surprise in the list was the dropping of Bilaspur’s Beltara MLA Rajnish Singh and his replacement with Sushant Shukla. Shukla is a former member of the state youth commission and co-in-charge of the state Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the BJP’s youth wing. The remaining two candidates fielded by the BJP today are newcomers — Dhaniram Dhiwar (Kasdol) and Dipesh Sahu (Bemetara).

An analysis of BJP candidates in the state shows a dominance of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Out of the 90 nominees, the BJP has named 33 from the OBC, 30 from the Scheduled Tribes and 10 from the Scheduled Castes categories. Reduced to just 13 seats in the state, the party has dropped only two sitting MLAs.