Since it came into existence in 1977, first as part of Madhya Pradesh then Chhattisgarh, the Kharsia assembly seat has stood out as an impregnable Congress fortress. Despite 11 elections, including a bypoll, the BJP is yet to breach it.
The constituency in Raigarh district, before Chhattisgarh was carved out of MP, had hogged the limelight in 1988 when Congress stalwart and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh successfully contested the by-election from here. Barring Singh, the seat has always been represented by Patels (Aghariya), an Other Backward Class (OBC) community, which constitutes about 25 per cent of the population in this constituency.
The seat is currently held by Chhattisgarh higher education minister Umesh Patel, who has been renominated from the same place for next month’s polls. This time, the BJP has pinned its hopes on Mahesh Sahu, a member of another dominant OBC community – Teli.
Polling to the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly will be held in two phases on November 7 and 17.
Poll experts feel it won’t be easy for the BJP to wrest this Congress bastion as even its stalwarts like Dilip Singh Judeo and Lakhiram Agrawal could not win from Kharsia. In 1977, Kharsia was carved in Raigarh district covering some parts of Raigarh and Dharamjaigarh areas. It was then a part of Madhya Pradesh. Chhattisgarh was formed in 2000.
Congress’ Laxmi Prasad Patel won this seat in 1977 despite there being a Janata Party wave, and subsequently in 1980 and 1985 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections.
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Laxmi Prasad vacated his seat for Arjun Singh, who resigned as Lok Sabha MP in 1988 and returned to Madhya Pradesh politics. Kharsia, then a backward area, was considered to be a safe seat for Singh, who defeated BJP’s Dilip Singh Judeo by a margin of 8,658 seats in bypoll.
Considering that Laxmi Prasad had won in 1985 with a margin of 21,279 votes, it became evident that Judeo gave a tough fight to Singh in the bypoll, said poll analyst R Krishna Das.
“It is said that Judeo had received good support from different areas of the constituency except Nandeli and its adjoining villages. This was the apparent reason Arjun Singh gave ticket to Nand Kumar Patel, then sarpanch of Nandeli village, to contest from Kharsia in the 1990 assembly polls,” he said.
Nand Kumar Patel won this seat five times – 1990, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 – and served as home minister in both undivided Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In 1990, he defeated BJP’s patriarch Lakhi Ram Agrawal who hails from Kharsia area.
In May 2013, Nand Kumar Patel, then state president of Congress, and his elder son were killed when Naxalites attacked their party’s ‘parivartan’ rally, ahead of the assembly elections, in Jhiram valley of Bastar district.
The Congress then fielded Nand Kumar’s younger son Umesh Patel from this seat and he won elections twice in 2013 and 2018.
Umesh Patel, who was appointed as the high education minister in the Bhupesh Baghel cabinet after Congress’ victory in 2018, is now seeking his third term from Kharsia in next month’s elections.
In the 2018 polls, Umesh defeated BJP’s OP Chaudhary, who had joined the party after quitting the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Chaudhary, who also comes from the Aghariya community, has been fielded by the BJP from adjoining Raigarh seat this time.
Nearly 88 per cent of 2,15,223 voters in Kharsia seat live in rural areas and OBCs constitute about 40 per cent of the seat’s population.
The BJP has for the first time fielded a Sahu candidate, whose community accounts for nearly 15 per cent of the constituency’s population, seeking to turn the tables in its 12th attempt as it has lost 11 elections there in the past, Das said.
The Patel Aghariya community is considered to be the decider of the poll outcome in this seat. However, the BJP is eyeing the votes of the Scheduled Castes who account for around 26 per cent of the population of the constituency, he said.
Whether Umesh will succeed in continuing the legacy of his family banking on the development works and welfare schemes of his government or the BJP will be able to breach the Congress citadel will be known on December 3 (when votes will be counted), Das added. Kharsia is among 70 constituencies which will go to polls in the second phase on November 17.
