Chhattisgarh will vote in two phases on November 7 and November 17 to elect 90 legislators to the assebly. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who played a key role in helping Congress form the government in 2018, will once again lead the party's charge.
Here are five points about Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel:
Congress has fielded Bhupesh Baghel from his traditional seat - Patan in Chhattisgarh's Durg district. Patan is in the state's central region and is among the Congress' strongholds.
In the 2018 assembly election, Bhupesh Baghel received 84,352 votes and defeated BJP candidate Motilal Sahu by a margin of 27,477 votes.
Bhupesh Baghel entered politics in 1990 as the Congress's district youth president. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the first time in 1993. He won the assembly elections four more times in 1998, 2003, 2013 and 2018.
Prior to being the Chief Minister, Mr Baghel held several ministerial posts, including the Minister of Transport in Madhya Pradesh, Minister of Revenue Rehabilitation in Chhattisgarh, Member of the Business Advisory Committee and Member of the Public Accounts Committee between 1999 and 2015.
Mr Baghel was born on August 23, 1961, in Raipur and holds a Master's degree from Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University.
