Prestige of former Chief Minister Raman Singh is at stake in Rajnandgaon Lok Sabha constituency where his close  associate Santosh Pandey is locked in a direct contest with Congress’s Bholaram Sahu.

Singh, who is also the national vice president of the BJP, is a sitting MLA from Rajnandgaon, one of eight assembly segments that constitute the Lok Sabha seat.  Pandaria, Kawardha, Khairagarh, Dongargarh (SC), Dongargaon, Khujji and Mohla Manpur are the other segments.

In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Raman’s son Abhishek Singh got elected from the Lok Saba seat, considered a bastion of the former chief minister.

The BJP, however, denied ticket to Abhishek this time as part of its strategy of not repeating nomination of any of its sitting MPs in the state to buck anti-incumbency factor against them.

The saffron party adopted the policy after its electoral debacle in the assembly elections held in December last year.

BJP nominee Pandey is the party’s state general secretary, who had also served as a chairman of ‘Yuva Ayog’.

He is party’s local young face from the region and is known for his amiable nature. His Congress rival is a two times MLA from Khujji assembly segment of the constituency and belongs to powerful ‘Sahu’ community from the Other Backward Class (OBC).

Except for 2007 by-elections, the BJP had been continuously winning the seat since 1999.  But this time it is facing a tough challenge from a rejuvenated Congress. The grand-old party bagged 68 out of 90 seats in the assembly elections. 

The Congress is hoping that Sahu would make a serious dent to the BJP’s OBC support base being a member of the community himself. 

In election, arithmetic alone does not provide a winning formula. It also needs chemistry, and so the BJP is pinning hope on Raman Singh’s popularity to prevent erosion in its captive OBC vote bank. 

People of Rajnandgaon will decide whether to go with the Congress caste arithmetic or the BJP’s chemistry on April 18, the polling day.