'Target Is 75 Seats, Will Certainly Win': Congress's Big Claim Ahead Of Chhattisgarh Elections

Congress leader KC Venugopal has said that the party has set a target of winning 75 seats for the upcoming Chhattisgarh elections.

Chhattisgarh Elections 2023: As the stage is being set for the assembly elections in five states, political corridors of the country are abuzz with claims, allegations and attempts to garner maximum mandate. In Chhattisgarh, Congress has a challenged of retaining its power and the party has now said that it will do so by winning 75 seats. Party general secretary-organisation KC Venugopal on Saturday arrived in the state capital Raipur and said that the party has set a target of winning 75 of 90 assembly seats in the state.

"Our target is 75 seats, we will certainly win," Venugopal told reporters in Raipur.

Notably, in the 2018 assembly elections, Congress had bagged 68 seats while BJP could manage only 15, and BSP emerged distant third with two seats. No other party (CPI, CPM, NCP) could win even a single constituency.

This comes a day after Congress appointed district presidents, and formed various committees including for poll manifesto, election management, and disciplinary action among others to prepare for the upcoming assembly polls in the state of Chhattisgarh. 

The Election manifesto committee comprises 23 members in all. It includes Mohd. Akbar, Ravinder Chaubey, Shiv Kumar Dahariya, Amarjeet Bhagat, Umesh Patel, Premsai Singh Tekam, Dhanender Sahu, Phulo Devi Netam, Shailesh Pandey, Arun Vora, Shishupal Sori, Dwarkadhish Yadav, Kunwar Singh Nishad, Rajesh Tiwari, Chunni Lal Sahu, Idrish Gandhi, Hema Deshmukh, Atal Srivastav, Ajay Tirkay, Rajender Jaggi, Vani Rao, Shesh Raj Harbans, and Akash Sharma.

On Thursday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its first list of 21 candidates for the 90-member assembly elections in the state scheduled later this year. The party fielded Vijay Baghel, who is an MP from Durg, from Patan, where he will take on Congress leader and sitting chief minister Bhupesh Baghel. The list includes 5 women, and 1 and 10 members from the Schedules Castes and Schedules Tribes respectively.

BJP has fielded Lok Sabha MP Vijay Baghel from Patan, Bhulan Singh Maravi from Premnagar, Laxmi Rajwade from Bhatgaon, Shakuntala Singh Porthe from Pratappur (ST), Praboj Bhinj from Lundra (ST), Sarla Kosaria from Saraipali (SC), Alka Chandrakar from Khallari, Rohit Sahu from Rajim, Gita Ghasi Sahu from Khujji and Maniram Kashyap from Bastar (ST), among others.