Chhattisgarh Leader of Opposition wins, busts jinx

Raipur, December 12

When Congress leader TS Singh Deo won the Ambikapur Assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh, he not only comfortably retained the seat, but also broke a jinx in the process.

He busted the jinx that the sitting Leader of Opposition does not get re-elected to the Chhattisgarh Assembly.

TS Singh Deo, the Leader of Opposition in the outgoing Assembly, on Tuesday defeated BJP's Anurag Singh Deo by 39,624 votes to retain Ambikapur.

In the past, three leaders of opposition, who had contested the Assembly polls after serving their term, had failed to get re-elected.

In 2003, when the first Assembly elections were held in the state after its formation in 2000, the then Leader of Opposition Nandkumar Sai of the BJP had lost to former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi from the Marwahi seat.

Jogi is the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh.

Subsequently in 2008 polls, the then Leader of Opposition Mahendra Karma of the Congress had lost his Dantewada seat.

The same happened in the 2013 polls when the then Leader of Opposition Ravindra Choubey of the Congress was defeated in Saja, Durg district.

However, another jinx, that the Assembly speaker has failed to get re-elected after the BJP came to power in Chhattisgarh, has continued.

Gaurishankar Agrawal, speaker of the outgoing Assembly, lost from the Kasdol constituency. In the 2008 and 2013 polls too, the then speaker had bit the dust.

Agrawal became Assembly speaker in 2013 after the ruling BJP won a third consecutive term in office.

Agrawal had defeated Congress' Rajkamal Singhaniya by a margin of 22,928 votes of bag the Kasdol seat for the BJP five years ago.

This time, Agrawal lost to Congress candidate Shakuntala Sahu from Kasdol by a margin of 48,418 votes.

In 2013, the then Assembly speaker Dharamlal Kaushik was defeated by Congress candidate Siyaram Kaushik from the Bilha seat.

Dharamlal Kaushik, who is currently the state BJP chief, this time won from Bilha where he defeated Congress nominee Rajendra Shukla by 26,524 votes.

Similarly, in the 2008 elections, the then assembly speaker Premprakash Pandey had lost to Congress candidate Badruddin Qureshi in Bhilai Nagar.

The Congress, out of power in Chhattisgarh since 2003, on Tuesday registered a landslide victory, winning 68 of the 90 Assembly seats in the state.

The ruling BJP was reduced to 15 seats, while the Jogi -led Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) bagged five. Jogi's ally Bahujan Samaj Party won two seats. PTI