Ajit Jogi’s JCC(J) announces 16 candidates for first phase of Chhattisgarh polls

Raipur: Former chief minister Ajit Jogi-founded Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) on Friday released its first list of 16 candidates for Phase I of the upcoming assembly polls in the state.

The list was shared by JCC (J) president Amit Jogi on his X handle.

Of these 16 seats, the party had won one – Khairagarh – in the 2018 assembly elections but later lost it in the bye-elections last year.

Eight of these 16 constituencies are reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) and one for Scheduled Caste (SC) categories.

Polling for the 90-member state assembly is scheduled in two phases on November 7 and 17. Friday is the last day of filing nominations for the first phase wherein 20 seats will see voting. The remaining 70 seats will go to polls on November 17. Votes will be counted on December 3.

The party has fielded Lauckky Kunwar Netam from Khairagarh seat, which was won by Devvrat Singh of JCC (J) in 2018. Singh, who was a three-term Congress MLA before switching sides, died following a cardiac arrest in November 2021.

The Congress captured Khairagarh in the bypoll, necessitated by Singh’s passing, in April last year. It has renominated incumbent MLA Yashoda Verma, while the BJP has fielded a young face, Vikrant Singh, who is the vice president of Rajnandgaon zila panchayat and a relative of former chief minister Raman Singh.

As per the list, the other JCC (J) candidates are Ravi Chandravanshi (Pandariya seat), Sunil Kesharwani (Kawardha), Loknath Bharti (Dongargarh-SC), Shamshul Alam (Rajnandgaon), Mukesh Sahu (Dongargaon), Vinod Puram (Khujji), Nagesh Puram (Mohla-Manpur-ST), Shankar Netam (Kondagaon-ST), Baliram Kachlam (Narayanpur-ST), Sonsai Kashyap (Bastar-ST), Navneet Chand (Jagdalpur), Bharat Kashyap (Chitrakot-ST), Bela Netam (Dantewada-ST), Ramdhar Jurri (Bijapur-ST) and Devendra Telam (Konta -ST).

No woman candidate features on the list. The party has not fielded candidates for four seats of Bastar region which will also see voting in the first phase.

The JCC (J) had contested the last elections in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and emerged as a third front winning seven seats, but this time it is struggling to remain politically relevant in binary politics dominated by the Congress and BJP.

In an interview with PTI, Amit Jogi had said his party was reaching out to Sarva Adivasi Samaj (SAS) and Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) for an alliance. However, the party has so far not entered into an alliance with any outfit.

The Mayawati-led BSP has entered into an alliance with GGP.

The JCC (J) has been virtually in crisis after the death of Ajit Jogi in 2020.

Ajit Jogi, who headed the Congress government in the state from 2000 to 2003, floated JCC (J) in 2016 after parting ways with the grand old party and contested the 2018 assembly polls in alliance with BSP. Though JCC (J) could not influence the poll outcome but it succeeded in making inroads into the state politics, traditionally dominated by the BJP and Congress.

In 2018, the Congress returned to power after a long gap winning 68 of the 90 seats, while the BJP finished a distant second at 15. The JCC (J) bagged five segments and its ally BSP 2.

The JCC (J)’s vote share stood at 7.6 per cent, hailed as the first-ever significant performance of a regional party in Chhattisgarh. However, after Ajit Jogi’s death in May 2020, the Jogi junior is struggling to keep the flock together.

The JCC (J) lost two assembly segments – Marwahi and Khairagarh – in the bypolls held after the death of incumbent MLAs Ajit Jogi and Devvrat Singh. Two other MLAs of JCC (J) – Dharmjeet Singh and Pramod Sharma – were expelled from the party, leaving the outfit with lone legislator Renu Jogi, wife of late Ajit Jogi, who represents the Kota seat.