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BJP vice-president and three-time chief minister Raman Singh is seen as a front-runner for the top post, which would be his fourth term in office, but the party may well look for a fresh face.
The soft-spoken Ayurveda practitioner is known for his gentle manners and administrative acumen, and is the BJP’s most-recognisable face in the state.
In 2018, the party had suffered a shock defeat in the state under Singh’s watch.Despite murmurs within a section of the BJP about the end of his political innings, Singh remained active and would make his voice heard on every failure and misstep of the Congress government.
In conversations, formal and informal, he would assert that he was determined to bring BJP back to power in the state. The 71-year-old BJP leader retained his Rajnandgaon constituency by a comfortable margin, and looks to be the favoured choice for the chief minister’s job again.
However, the BJP may opt for someone new – a tribal or someone from the OBC community which voted overwhelmingly for the saffron camp. If BJP looks for a tribal face, Vishnu Deo Sai, a former Union minister and state BJP president, looks like the frontrunner. However, considering the fact that the BJP tried to woo the dominant OBC Sahu community by fielding 11 Sahu candidates, state BJP president Arun Sao is also a strong contender for the chair.
Vishnu Deo Sai won from Kunkuri (ST) constituency in north Chhattisgarh while Sao had an overwhelming victory in Lormi constituency of Bilaspur.
With BJP winning all 14 seats in the tribal Surguja region, Union minister Renuka Singh Sarpota is also in the limelight. She won the Bharatpur-Sonhat (ST) constituency, and fits into the BJP’s narrative of women’s empowerment.
There is also speculation in party circles that 42-year-old IAS officer-turned-politician O P Choudhary could be drafted for an important role, as Union home minister Amit Shah had publicly said during the Raigarh campaign: “You elect him (Choudhary) as an MLA; it’s my job to make him a big person.”
The soft-spoken Ayurveda practitioner is known for his gentle manners and administrative acumen, and is the BJP’s most-recognisable face in the state.
In 2018, the party had suffered a shock defeat in the state under Singh’s watch.Despite murmurs within a section of the BJP about the end of his political innings, Singh remained active and would make his voice heard on every failure and misstep of the Congress government.
In conversations, formal and informal, he would assert that he was determined to bring BJP back to power in the state. The 71-year-old BJP leader retained his Rajnandgaon constituency by a comfortable margin, and looks to be the favoured choice for the chief minister’s job again.
However, the BJP may opt for someone new – a tribal or someone from the OBC community which voted overwhelmingly for the saffron camp. If BJP looks for a tribal face, Vishnu Deo Sai, a former Union minister and state BJP president, looks like the frontrunner. However, considering the fact that the BJP tried to woo the dominant OBC Sahu community by fielding 11 Sahu candidates, state BJP president Arun Sao is also a strong contender for the chair.
Vishnu Deo Sai won from Kunkuri (ST) constituency in north Chhattisgarh while Sao had an overwhelming victory in Lormi constituency of Bilaspur.
With BJP winning all 14 seats in the tribal Surguja region, Union minister Renuka Singh Sarpota is also in the limelight. She won the Bharatpur-Sonhat (ST) constituency, and fits into the BJP’s narrative of women’s empowerment.
There is also speculation in party circles that 42-year-old IAS officer-turned-politician O P Choudhary could be drafted for an important role, as Union home minister Amit Shah had publicly said during the Raigarh campaign: “You elect him (Choudhary) as an MLA; it’s my job to make him a big person.”
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