The seeds of the battle for Rajnandgaon in the state of Chhattisgarh were sown days after the death of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Once a staunch BJP loyalist, Karuna Shukla, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece after three decades shifted to the Congress in 2014. Days after the death of the saffron stalwart, Karuna training guns at the BJP had said that the death of Vajpayee was being politicized to milk political capital out of it.
Interestingly the battle for Rajnandgaon, this Chhattisgarh election will be based on the very legacy that Karuna Shukla is part of – Vajpayee legacy.
The barb comes with a reference to how despite four years of Modi regime and 15 year rule of Raman government, the memory of Atal remained elusive until recently. The BJP ahead of polls has been instrumental in launching schemes and naming places after the former prime minister.
The desperation of milking political capital out of Atal becomes evident given that the state government has decided to name Naya Raipur, the upcoming capital city of the state, as ‘Atal Nagar’.
Shukla ended her 32-year-long association with BJP in 2014.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on October 23 filed his nomination from the Rajnandgaon constituency. Meanwhile rival candidate of Congress Karuna Shukla filed her nomination on November 12 in Rajnandgaon.
The fight between the two with Atal and his memory as the focal point becomes interesting because both contestants are millionaires.
Raman Singh is looking for a record fourth term in office.
Karuna Shukla had made her view about the BJP plain and simple early in 2013 when she said that he was leaving BJP for being sidelined in the state.
Shukla contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Bilaspur constituency and lost to BJP’s Lakhanlal Sahu.
Even as Raman Singh remains a hot favourite in the constituency, the anxiety of facing the NOTA monster is high in the mind of BJP say reports. The basis of the argument is believed to be the district Kisan Sangh’s announcement that NOTA will be its choice if it finds no able candidate. Analysts hence do not rule out a tougher anti-incumbency challenge. Rajnandgaon will go to the polls on November 20
Chhattisgarh as a state boasts of the Atal legacy because it was during the Atal regime that the state was carved out of MP on Nov 1, 2000. This was done under the then Vajpayee led NDA regime.
Vajpayee, who was prime minister between 1998 and 2004, died in New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, on August 16.
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