The Congress won 68 of Chhattisgarh’s 90 assembly seats in 2018, forming a government in the state for the first time since its (the state’s) creation since 2000, and will be looking to repeat its performance in next month’s assembly election on the back of its outreach to backward classes and its welfare measures, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party, which ruled the state for 15 years, seeks to target the Bhupesh Basghel-led government for corruption.

Elections to the state will be held on November 7 and 17. Since 2018, after multiple bypolls, the Congress tally has risen to 71, and the BJP now has 13 seats.

Also read: Congress to be tested in tribal areas as BJP tries to bridge gap

Five years ago, the Congress rode to power on a three-term anti-incumbency vote against the BJP government, that had won every election –2003,2008 and 2013 — held in the state till that point. Baghel, from an other backward class (OBC) community himself, has looked to reinforce his party’s OBC-outreach identity over the past five years, pushing a strong “regional” identity, putting what he calls “Chhattisgarhiyavaad” at the front and centre of his politics. The state government has supported the celebration of regional festivals, popular among the OBCs in Chhattisgarh’s agrarian plains, such as “Teeja Pora” and “Govardhan Pooja”. The Congress has also tried to pre-empt the BJP’s Hindtuva appeal, with the creation of a “Ram Van Gaman Path”, a route that Lord Ram is believed to have taken through parts of the state, and building cow shelters,.

The BJP has framed much of its campaign around allegations of corruption against the Congress government, that has faced numerous probes by central agencies over the past three years. These investigations, by the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax department cover alleged corruption in the distribution of coal, excise policy, procurement of cow dung, and admission to the state Public Service Commission. Over the past three years, bureaucrats and politicians, some close to Baghel such as his deputy secretary Soumya Chaurasia have been arrested; the chief minister’s political advisor Vinod Verma and two OSD’s — Masnish Banchhor and Ashish Verma — have been questioned in the alleged Mahadev App racket. The Congress has alleged the investigations are politically motivated.

The Congress does face other challenges. There are rumblings of discontent in both the tribal north and the south of the state, areas which the party swept in 2018. In Bastar, the Congress has looked to pre-empt this by appointing young tribal leader and MP Deepak Baij as party president, giving him the reins of the region. In the north however, there may be repercussions of a leadership struggle between Baghel and TS Singhdeo that played out for over four years. While the Congress moved to quell that fire in 2002 by appointing Singhdeo Deputy Chief Minister, parts of north Chhattisgarh where the latter holds sway may not be mollified.

“Congress is likely to lose seats in all four regions ( Surguja, Bilaspur, Bastar and Durg) in comparison to what we got in the 2018 elections. One issue is the performance of the first time legislators. Some castes like the Sahus who voted for the Congress in 2018, may shift away because it is clear that nobody from their grouping will be Chief Minister. The Congress is still ahead, but it needs to be careful with region, caste dynamics and regional aspirations,” a senior Congress leader said, asking not to be named.

The BJP, meanwhile, has struggled to find a credible leader after former Chief Minister Raman Singh. While Singh is contesting again from Rajnandgaon, the party has not named a chief ministerial candidate. Beyond corruption, it has also struggled to articulate key issues that it will fight the election on.

“The BJP workers are not happy with the ticket distribution. They will get around 26 seats and nothing more than that… The senior leaders who were the main reasons for the defeat in 2018 were again given tickets. There is huge infighting among them,” said RP Singh, Congress spokesperson and senior leader.

“ In this election , we are coming back. As per our estimate we are getting more than 50 seats and issues of Congress on which they are banking are just to misguide the people of the state. Everyone knows what is happening,” said Ajay Chandrakar, former minister and chief spokesperson of BJP.

“If we look at the surveys, as of now Congress seems to be losing some seats but it is still slightly ahead of BJP in Chhattisgarh. The BJP list of candidates shows that it has relied on old faces and not experimented with tickets. The Congress is yet to announce its candidates. But the biggest challenge for BJP and Congress is going to be controlling infighting, which is widely prevalent in both parties,” said Rajan Pandey, a political commentator.