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Bastar Lok Sabha constituency

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Bastar is one of 11 Lok Sabha constituencies in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh and will cast vote in the first phase of the election this year – on April 11.

It is reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribes.

Considered one of the toughest constituencies to conduct elections in due to the prevailing security threat posed by Naxals here, there are eight assembly segments here – Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Jagdalpur, Chitrakot, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election here, Dinesh Kashyap – son of Baliram Kashyap who had numerous terms as Bastar MP – defeated Congress’ Deepak Karma by 1,24,359 votes. The others in the fray were AAP’s Soni Sori and CPI’s Bimala Sori but they failed to make any impact here. The voter turnout was 59.32 per cent. The elections – much like all elections before it – were conducted under a heavy security blanket. Over 40,000 security personnel were deployed even as Naxals called for a boycott.

The Naxal threat was omnipresent even before and during the 2009 Lok Sabha election and the voter turnout was 47.33 per cent. BJP’s Baliram – the outright favourite – managed yet another win by defeating Congress’ Shankar Sodhi. Violence erupted in some of the polling booths with Naxals firing upon security forces here on the day of voting.

Ballots, and not bullets, however remain the most powerful weapon here.

Source: Zee News