New Delhi:
Congress, looking to retain power in Chhattisgarh, has Speaker Charan Das Mahant, 69, leading its campaign in the state for the second consecutive time. The state will vote in two phases on November 7 and November 17 to send 90 MLAs to the assembly.
Here are 5 points about Chhattisgarh Assembly Speaker Charan Das Mahant:
Charan Das Mahant, who left the post of Naib Tehsildar in 1984 to enter politics, belongs to the Other Backward Classes and has wide acceptance among the various party factions in the state as a "neutral face". He won his first Lok Sabha election in 1998 and was re-elected in 1999 and then in 2009 when he was the only Congress MP from Chhattisgarh.
Four years after joining politics, Charan Das Mahant became a minister in Arjun Singh's Madhya Pradesh government in 1988 and went on to become the Home Minister and subsequently the Excise and Public Relations Minister in Digvijaya Singh's government in the state in 1993.
Five years later, in 1998, he got his first Lok Sabha ticket from the Janjgir seat and became an MP. He served as the Union Minister of State for Agriculture in the Manmohan Singh government when the UPA came back to power for a second term in 2009.
Charan Das Mahant, however, lost the next general election in 2014 and in 2018, he campaigned with might and main for the Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections. He won and became the Assembly Speaker.
A champion of tribal rights, Charan Das Mahant formulates action plans and events to uplift the tribal community, creating platforms for folk art, including drama, dance, and songs. The veteran politician is greatly inspired by poet and saint Kabir, has immense faith in astrology, and is deeply religious.
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