Bastar and Rajnandgaon are places where Maoists create more headlines than mainstream parties around elections. Their presence and actions dominate political rhetoric in and around Chhattisgarh. A DD cameraman’s heart-wrenching death, contrasting with a star anchor’s thinly staged action...the week saw it all. Some 650 companies of CRPF, BSF, ITBP, 6,5000 cops from more than one state, IAF/BSF choppers—in short, over a lakh security personnel, backed up by eyes in the sky—were pressed into service to steer Monday’s first phase in 18 Assembly constituencies.
In 12 of these, in the acute red zone, polling was wrapped up by 3 pm. Despite all this, an IED was detonated in Dantewada; two CRPF personnel were injured in exchange of fire in Bijapur. By late afternoon, the turnout stood at 47.18 per cent, with unofficial figures being 58 per cent and 62 per cent in Bastar and Kanker respectively; Antagarh saw only 43 per cent. Still, these are strikingly robust figures, having been polled in defiance of a Maoist ‘ban’ call.
The Congress has higher stakes in these parts, holding as it does a majority of seats in the tribal belt of southern Chhattisgarh. Little wonder its leaders complained about EVM/VVPAT malfunctioning, which the EC did not give much credence to, citing timely change of faulty voting machines. CM Raman Singh, making a stab at a fourth term, is in the fray from Rajnandgaon. The rest of Chhattisgarh will be voting on November 20. Chhattisgarh’s first CM, Ajit Jogi, has of course skewed set patterns by allying his rebel party with the BSP: it’s no more a straight BJP-Congress fight.
In one of India’s most mineral-rich states blessed with considerable forest cover—conflicting public ‘goods’ being expressed right there—the issue of tribal rights is inextricably entangled with the Maoist insurgency. It’s ironical that democracy has to function under state protection and surveillance, and people have to vote fearing for their lives. Whoever wins, will Chhattisgarh cease to be a war zone? Not difficult to guess.