Team News Riveting
Raipur, April 12
Over 78 per cent voter turnout was recorded in Chhattisgarh’s Khairagarh assembly by-elections as no untoward incident was reported from any part of the constituency, a part of which had been infested by the Left-Wing Extremism.
The mid-term poll was necessitated in Khairagarh following the death of the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (Jogi) (JCC-J) legislator and former MP Devvrat Singh. Khairagarh State was a feudatory state of the former Central Provinces of British India. The chief, who is descended from the old Nagvanshi Rajputs royal family, received the title of Raja, The King, as a hereditary distinction in 1898.
Devvrat Singh belonged to the erstwhile royal family and had quit the Congress in 2017 to join JCC-J founded by former Chief Minister late Ajit Jogi. The constituency is witnessing a three-cornered contest. While the JCC-J is trying to retain its base, BJP has pitted former State Minister Komal Janghel and pulled all the strings to record its electoral presence as the party had lost all the three by-elections held during the tenure of incumbent Congress government.
After the 2018 state polls in which BJP faced humiliating defeat after 15 years of rule, three by-polls were held in Dantewada, Bijapur and Marwahi. The Congress won all the three seats. At the present the Congress has 70 MLAs in the State Assembly while BJP has 14. Congress fielded Yashoda Verma and had been confident to maintain the trend. However, it had deployed a battery of ministers in the constituency for electioneering.
The polling started at 7am on Tuesday and concluded peacefully around 5pm. In all, 291 polling centres were set up for around 2.11 lakh people to exercise their franchise.
The counting of votes will take place on April 16.
