Raipur: The Jogi couple is in the electoral fray for this year’s Chhattisgarh Assembly elections.

While Ajit Jogi, a sitting MP from Mahasamund, will be contesting the election from the Marwahi (ST) seat, his wife Renu Jogi, a sitting MLA, will be contesting from the Kota constituency, both in Bilaspur district.

Both of them filed their nomination at Bilaspur on Monday.

In the last Assembly elections Mr. Jogi had contested from Marwahi and defeated BJP’s Nandkumar Sai by 54,150 votes. He, however, resigned from the seat soon after he was elected to Parliament from the Mahasamund constituency defeating senior leader Vidya Charan Shukla.

With Mr. Sai moving to the court questioning Mr. Jogi’s caste status and his contesting from the Marwahi reserved constituency, by-election could not be held for that seat and it remained vacant till the end of the second Assembly.

On the other hand, Renu Jogi, entered active politics when she contested and won the Kota Assembly seat in a by-election.

The seat fell vacant following the death of Congress MLA Rajendra Prasad Shukla.

There was suspense over Mr. Jogi contesting from Marwahi till last minute, as there was no name from Marwahi in the last list of candidates declared by the party high command for Chhattisgarh. However, he got the consent from party leadership at last minute and filed his nomination. PTI

IANS adds: Talking to media persons, Mr. Jogi said: “Chhattisgarh has always been the stronghold of Congress and people have made up their mind to bring back the Congress to put the State back on the track of development.” Chhattisgarh goes to polls on November 14 for 39 seats and on November 20 for 51 seats to elect a new 90- member Assembly. Kota and Marwahi will see polls on November 20.

The Congress party, that has 34 legislators in the outgoing 90-member Assembly, is contesting 87 seats while it has left three seats to alliance partner Nationalist Congress Party.

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