BSP to contest all 11 Chhattisgarh seats on its own

Raipur: The BSP has decided to contest all 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh on its own and will name all its candidates within a week.

The party has already announced four candidates from the Raipur, Bilaspur, Kanker and Janjgir seats. Contestants for the remaining seven seats would be decided soon.

"The state body of the party will be meeting in Raipur on Friday in the presence of a party observer to discuss the names of ticket claimants. We will surely announce the candidates within a week," said Chhattisgarh BSP chief, Dauram Ratnakar.

"In the November Assembly polls, the party bagged just two seats out of the 90 but polled 6.11 per cent of the votes with a strong showing in at least 18 segments. We are pretty sure to pull off victory in a few seats," Ratnakar said.

The delimitation exercise has increased the number of unreserved seats in the state from five to six. Seats reserved for Scheduled Caste have been reduced to one from two. The state also has four seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

In the 2004 Parliamentary polls, the BJP won 10 seats in the state while the Congress bagged one.

Chhattisgarh goes to the polls on April 16.