Even as the party pinned its hopes on old-timers, many new faces also made it to the first list of candidates for the polls next month.
Out of the 30 seats for which the Congress has announced its candidates, 14 are reserved for the Scheduled Tribe and three for Scheduled Caste categories.
In the rest of the 13 general seats, candidates belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) have been fielded in nine seats. Four women candidates, including a sitting minister and two MLAs, are on the list, PTI reported.
The ministers who have been given tickets are - Tamradhwaj Sahu (Durg rural), Amarjeet Bhagat (Sitapur- ST), Umesh Patel (Kharsia), Jai Singh Agrawal (Korba), Shivkumar Dahariya (Arang-SC), Anila Bhendia (Dondi Lohara- ST), Ravindra Choubey (Saja), Mohammad Akbar (Kawardha), Kawasi Lakhma (Konta) and Mohan Lal Markam (Kondagaon).
Minister Guru Rudra Kumar, who contested the 2018 poll from the Ahiwara seat (Durg district), has been fielded from the Navagarh-SC constituency in neighbouring Bemetara district.
However, Congress sitting MLA from Navagarh Gurudayal Singh Banjare did not make it to the list released on Sunday.
State Congress chief and Bastar Lok Sabha member Deepak Baij has been fielded from the Chitrakot-ST seat. Baij won the 2018 assembly election from Chitrakot, but he vacated the seat after winning the Lok Sabha poll in 2019. Congress candidate Rajman Benzam had won the bypoll held for the seat.
The other candidates who have been fielded replacing sitting MLAs from their seats are- Neelkanth Chandravanshi (Pandariya seat), Bhola Ram Sahu (Khujji), Roop Singh Potai (Antagarh-ST), Shankar Dhruv (Kanker-ST), Harshita Swami Baghel (Dongargarh-SC) and K Chhavindra Mahendra Karma.
Except for former MLAs Bhola Ram Sahu and Shankar Dhruv, the four others are fresh faces.
Karma is the son of sitting MLA Devti Karma and late Congress leader Mahendra Karma. Neelkanth Chandravanshi is the president of the Kabirdham district unit of Congress, while Harshita Swami Baghel is a member of the Rajnandgaon Zila Panchayat.
Congress leader and Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation Chairman Girish Dewangan has been fielded from Rajnandgaon seat against Raman Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party's national vice president and former chief minister of the state.
Yashoda Verma (Khairagarh), Daleshwar Sahu (Dgongargaon), Indrashah Mandavi (Mohla-Manpur ST), Savitri Mandavi (Bhanupratappur-ST), Sant Ram Netam (Keshkal-ST), Chandan Kashyap (Narayanpur-ST), Lakheshwar Baghel (Bastar-ST) and Vikram Mandavi (Bijapur-ST) are other incumbent MLAs who have been repeated this time. Of the nine OBC candidates featuring in the list, three belong to Sahu, a dominant OBC community in the state that hugely contributed to Congress' victory in the previous polls.
In the 2018 polls, the Rajnandgaon seat was won by Singh, who had defeated Karuna Shukla by a margin of 16,933 votes.
Asked if the BJP was planning to take advantage of the presence of parties like the Ajit Jogi-founded Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) and some other smaller outfits, Baghel said, "You have to understand the chronology. On one hand Amit Jogi (of the Ajit Jogi-founded party) files a case in court, on the other hand, he gets security. The alliance between the JCC(J) and Bahujan Samaj Party has ended."
Assembly polls will be held in two phases on November 7 and 17, while votes will be counted on December 3.