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Updated: Sep 06, 2019 05:35 IST

On the last day of filing nomination papers on Wednesday for Dantewada assembly bypolls in Chhattisgarh, both the Congress and BJP candidates filed their nomination papers in the presence of party senior leaders.

The murder of BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi on April 9 this year has necessitated the bypolls in Dantewada. His murder happened two days before parliamentary elections in Bastar. The polling is scheduled to be held on September 23 and the counting of votes will take place on September 27.

In 2018 assembly polls, BJP’s Bhima Mandavi and Congress’ Devati Karma fought a close electoral battle with the former winning the polls by a thin margin of 2172 votes.

This time BJP has fielded Ojaswi Mandavi, wife of the slain BJP leader, Bhima Mandavi but Congress has retained Devati Karma as their candidate for the upcoming bypolls. BJP has been able to manage only one seat out of 12 assembly seats in the Bastar region.

“It will be difficult for BJP to retain the seat because of support of tribals and pro-tribal policies which Bhupesh government initiated after forming the government. I believe that that it will be a close contest in Dantewada,” said Ashok Tomar , Raipur based political commentator.

Karma was being accompanied by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, AICC state in-charge PL Punia, cabinet ministers and party MLAs during filing her nomination while Mandavi filed her nomination along with former CM Raman Singh.

“We have initiated various programmes for the tribals and farmers which will definitely garner results. We are winning Dantewada,” said Bhupesh Baghel , talking to media persons.

Former CM Raman Singh said, “We are relying on the 15 years of work, which we have done for the people of Dantewada. As far as Congress is concerned, people across the state are now fed-up with Bhupesh government.”

There are 1, 88,263 voters in the assembly of which 89,747 are male voters and 98,876 are female voters. The assembly constituency has a total of 273 polling centres.