Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel.
Credit: PTI Photo
As the voting for the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly gets under way, let us take a look at all the chief ministers of the state who have been able to complete one full term (five years) of rule.
It is noteworthy that Chhattisgarh has only seen three chief ministers till now since it became its own separate state only in 2000 with the late Ajit Jogi as its first CM. However, Jogi held the office from November 2000 to December 2003 after which Raman Singh took over.
The first CM to ever complete a term in the state was BJP’s Raman Singh who is also the longest-serving chief minister in the state. He held the post for three consecutive terms from 2003 to 2018.
Singh joined BJP as a youth member in 1976-77 and was selected in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly constituency in 1990 and 1993. He became the president of the Bhartiya Janata Party in the newly formed Chhattisgarh and spearheaded the 2003 Assembly election victory of the party. However, In the 2018 Assembly polls, Congress handed a massive defeat to BJP which had been in power for 15 years.
Adamant on making a comeback after a loss in 2018, Raman Singh is one of the main candidates of the BJP in phase one of the Chhattisgarh election.
The second CM to complete a full term in the state is the incumbent Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
Congress’s Baghel was the party president from 2014 to 2019 before he became Raman Singh's successor and took over the reigns of the Chhattisgarh government.
For the ongoing elections, the Congress has based its campaign on a slew of welfare schemes of the Baghel government for farmers, women, tribals and Dalits, as well as a promise to waive farm loans if it retains power.
However, Baghel is in a political soup after the BJP on Sunday released a video of Shubham Soni, an accused in the Mahadev Book betting app case, saying he is its owner and has "proof" of paying Rs 508 crore so far to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating the illegal betting app syndicate and raided Mahadev Book in Chhattisgarh.
(With PTI inputs)