C’garh: Congress Renominates Woman Tribal Leader Netam as RS Candidate from C’garh, BJP Fields OBC Leader
Ms. Verma also filed her nomination on Thursday.
Raipur: Congress has renominated women tribal leader and sitting MP Phulo Devi Netam as its Rajya Sabha candidate from Chhattisgarh.
Netam is a prominent tribal leader of Bastar, considered the politically significant region of Chhattisgarh consisting of 12 of the 90 Assembly seats in the state.
Sources said she is close to senior Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, who is believed to be viewing the Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee (CPCC) president Deepak Baij, also a tribal leader from Bastar, as his political rival.
Mr. Baij, a former Lok Sabha member, is seen by his followers as the chief ministerial prospect in the 2028 Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh.
Ms. Netam’s re-election to the RS in the upcoming biennial polls, which is a foregone conclusion considering the strength of the party in the state Assembly, will make her emerge as the undisputed tribal leader of Bastar in the party, sources said.
She filed her nomination here on Thursday.
BJP has nominated woman OBC (Other Backward Class) leader Laxmi Verma for the biennial polls in Chhattisgarh, scheduled to be held on March 16.
Fifty-five-year-old Ms. Verma is an organizational woman and currently holds the post of vice president of state unit of BJP.
She is believed to be close to Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai.
Ms. Verma also filed her nomination on Thursday.
Two RS seats in Chhattisgarh have fallen vacant following expiry of terms of sitting MPs, Netam and KTS Tulsi (both from Congress), in the Upper House, necessitating the biennial polls in the state.
BJP and Congress are in comfortable positions in the state Assembly to send their candidates to the RS.
While BJP has 54 MLAs, Congress has a strength of 35 in the 90-member House.
Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) has one MLA.
