Bhopal: The Congress has wrested the Dantewada (ST) Assembly constituency in Bastar in Chhattisgarh from the BJP in the byelections, the results of which were declared on Friday. With this, the BJP has been wiped out of Bastar.
Congress had earlier won 11 out of 12 Assembly seats in Bastar, once considered an impregnable fort of the saffron party.
Congress candidate in Dantewada Devti Karma defeated her nearest BJP rival Ojaswi Manadavi by a margin of 11,331 votes. While Devti secured 50,028 votes, Ojaswi bagged 38,836 votes. Both of them have lost their spouses in Naxal violence.
While Devti’s husband Mahendra Karma, a Congress leader, was killed along with 26 other Congress leaders in a Maoist ambush in Jeeram Ghati in Bastar district in May 2013, Ojaswi’s spouse, Bheema Mandavi, the sitting BJP MLA, was killed in a Naxal landmine blast at Shyamgiri in Dantewada district in April this year.
Bheema Mandavi’s killing necessitated by-election to the Dantewada seat.
