Under the shadow of the gun, polling started off in 18 constituencies of eight Naxal-affected districts— Bastar, Kanker, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, and Rajnandgaon.

The elections for the 90 seats of the state is scheduled to be held in two phases. The first phase of polling in 18 constituencies is scheduled for today. The second phase, for the remaining 72 constituencies, will be held on November 20. Naxal outfits have executed over half-a-dozen attacks in the last 15 days to scare away voters from participation in the election.

BJP & Congress have been winning almost the same percentage of votes in the last three elections. Congress is behind BJP by only around 0.7% votes. The Satnamis (Dalits) and tribals form the core vote base of the Congress and around 66% of its votes come from this segment. BJP has banked on the upper caste and backward caste votes and gets around 71% of its votes from them.

In 2013 Assembly elections BJP had bagged 49 seats and the Congress 39. This time, former CM Ajit Jogi (in alliance with Mayawati’s BSP) is said to be tacitly supporting the BJP. Jogi had an enviable support among Satnamis and his exit from Congress might have harmed the Grand Old Party. Jogi (Janata Congress Chhattisgarh) is said to be soft on BJP and is mainly targeting Congress.