Bastar Lok Sabha seat: Candidates for 2019 LS poll, past results, all updates

Bastar in Chhattisgarh needs no introduction. It remains in news throughout the year for being the hotbed of Maoist insurgency. While the government has achieved considerable success against Maoists, from time to time they manage to land a blow at security apparatus. Like it happened on 9th April, when BJP MLA from Dantewada Bhima Mandavi and four other security men were killed in Maoist attack. 

Amidst this, election in ST-reserved seat of Bastar assumes special significance and challenge to the Election Commission. While the situation in Bastar is changing slowly, politically the electorate has taken a sharp turn from BJP to Congress in the recently concluded Assembly election. 

Read: Chhattisgarh BJP MLA's convoy attacked by Naxals in Dantewada 

BJP virtually got wiped out in tribal-dominated seats winning only 3 out of 29. Among assembly segments which come under Bastar LS, BJP only managed to win Dantewada and lost from other seven. Dantewada MLA Mandavi got killed in Maoist attack on the last day of campaigning. 

Bastar Lok Sabha seat comprises of Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Jagdalpur, Chitrakot, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta assembly segments.   

Panic-stricken BJP is desperate to cut losses in the Lok Sabha election.  Hence it has dropped all the 10 sitting MPs. 

The party banking on new faces is trying to counter Congress, which is aiming to dent BJP's success story in the ST seats in Lok Sabha election. Congress will be aware of the fact that the anti-incumbency which the state BJP faced in Assembly polls may not be that pronounced during the Lok Sabha election. It will boil down to whether voters are looking to give PM Modi a second term. 

Congress has fielded Dipak Baij, a state legislator as a candidate from Bastar. He will be fighting against BJP's Baiduram Kashyap. Two time MP Dinesh Kashyap has been denied ticket. Bastar, from 98 has been a BJP fortress with party winning the seat uninterrupted. Baliram Kashyap won the seat four times in a row. 

However, before 1998, Bastar has been a strong Congress seat with party retaining it thrice after winning during the wave election of 1984. BJP has enjoyed a great run in Chhattisgarh in the Lok Sabha elections winning 10 out of 11 always. It will be a herculean feat to repeat that performance in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Bastar goes to polls on 11th April.