Chhattisgarh Congress blames 'internal sabotage' for poll losses

Raipur : The Congress in Chhattisgarh, upset over the defeat of many of its legislators in state polls, has blamed "internal sabotage".

"This is democracy and we consider it our bad luck that our big leaders, who were sure winners, were defeated. It also indicates some internal sabotage. We will analyse what happened," said state Congress chief Charandas Mahant on Tuesday.

He claimed that BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi made no impact in the state.

However, he added, the Congress accepted the mandate.

27 Congress MLAs lost their seats, including prominent candidates like Rampukar Singh, Bodhram Kanwar, Premsai Singh, Amitesh Shukla, the leader of opposition Ravindra Choubey and Shakrajeet Nayak.

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Many have attributed the close fight between the incumbent BJP of Chief Minister Raman Singh and the Congress to a sympathy wave in the aftermath of a Naxal attack earlier this year in which almost the entire Congress leadership in the state was killed.

Mr Mahant denied it, saying, "We never thought of encashing on the sacrifice of our leaders. We gave tickets to their relatives as a mark of respect."

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Congress General Secretary and state-in-charge B K Hariprasad claimed that the assembly poll verdict would have no bearing on the Lok Sabha election due by May. "These elections cannot be called semi-finals," he said.