Chhattisgarh: Why Kanker gives Congress a glimmer of hope

Raipur: If Kanker in Chhattisgarh gives the Congress hopes of a good show when the constituency goes to polls on Thursday, the reason can be traced to the results of the recently held assembly elections. [caption id=“attachment_1479577” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Naxal attack in Bastar. PTI[/caption] Six out of eight of the segments in this seat had gone to the Congress. The party would like to retain the vote share - it was ahead by over a lakh of votes in these segments against the 12,500 of the BJP in the remaining two. No wonder the seat was the first choice for Ajit Jogi at the ticket distribution stage. The Congress chose Phulo Devi Netam instead and Jogi had to settle for the neighboring Mahasamund. This is one of the few seats in the state where the BJP did not repeat its sitting MP, the four-time-in-a-row winner Sohan Potai. The latter has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent times. One that did the biggest damage to his chances of getting a re- nominated was a case in which two Maoist sympathizers were nabbed by the police in late 2013. To the embarrassment of the party, they were later discovered to be Potai’s close political associates too. The Congress candidate, Phulo Devi Netam, was in the national news too when a few months earlier she escaped the Maoist ambush of the Congress motorcade in the Darbha valley of Bastar with bullet injuries in her foot. A member of the assembly in 1998 from Keshkal segment of Kanker seat, she has also been the president of the Janpad Panchayat Pharasgaon block and Zila Panchayat in Bastar district. Candidates from both the main parties in this election are Gonds. The BJP candidate Vikram Singh Usendi is a sitting MLA from Antagarh and a three-term MLA from Narayanpurm, and was a minister in the Raman Singh government prior to this. Antagarh is a segment of Kanker and Narayanpur of the Bastar constituency. Usendi also got ample news space in 2012 when a book released that year Let’s call him Vasu by the journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary spoke about Usendi’s involvement with the Maoists, including his participation in the Maoist-sponsored meetings in Narayanpur before he became a minister. This much can be said in defense of Usendi: the book was received by the critics as a work carrying fragmented images of socio-economic and political realities in Maoist affected Chhattisgarh. Usendi got the benefit of doubt (and the BJP ticket) which Sohan Potai failed to. But this should not be a matter of comfort for Usendi. The BJP apparently is conscious of its loosened grip on the tribal votes in the recent elections and is sparing no effort to woo them. The Modi magic did not leave any proof of working in the tribal areas in the assembly elections. That partly explains the BJP’s newly recognized significance of Arvind Netam in Kanker. As a politician Netam is known to have reached a stature and prominence among the Gonds in a state that can only be shared with Raja Naresh Chandra Singh of Sarangarh, who was a chief minister of Madhya Pradesh once. No more with the Congress, he had started his innings on a promising note. The young Netam was made a part of the central government as a deputy minister by Indira Gandhi in 1972. However, his ambition and self-belief in his capabilities never matched the responsibilities and offices that came, or skirted his way in his later years. A disappointed Netam has switched parties more number of times than perhaps, he himself remembers. The tribals, to Netam’s relief, still have respect for the kinship. At times this is stronger than the political affiliation. The Gonds dominate the constituency to the extent that only they have represented this seat in the parliament since it came into existence in 1967. Arvind Netam was elected five times from here on the Congress ticket between 1971 and 1991. In 1996, after Netam’s name figured in the Hawala case, his wife Chhabila won and retained the seat. Till a few decades ago, Kanker area was part of the erstwhile Bastar princely state, and later the Bastar district. However, history is not the only subject it shares with the region. The hot bed of the Maoist insurgency, adjoining Bastar in the South is the forest clad and Maoist-troubled areas of Rajnandgaon district and Garh Chiroli district of Maharashtra in the west. The campaigning has been overshadowed by the Maoist threat. The recent deadly attacks on the parties returning after conducting polls in the Bastar constituency have demoralized the ordinary workers of all the parties. With the resultant restricted access to the organised political approach, clan leadership will have an opportunity to play an important role in deciding matters political for others.