1 / 5The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the 2023 Chhattisgarh Assembly elections with a thumping majority. Proving most of the exit polls wrong, the saffron party secured 54 seats in the 90-member state Assembly with a vote share of 46.27%. The Congress party managed to win only 35 seats with a vote share of 42.23%. The BJP leaders maintain their parliamentary board will make the final call on the CM's post. Here is a list of contenders for the top post in Chhattisgarh:
2 / 5Raman Singh | The longest-serving chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh holds the confidence of the party's top leadership and is among the frontrunners to get another opportunity to lead the state. The 71-year-old was the chief minister of Chhattisgarh from 2003 to 2018. During his tenure, Singh strengthened the rice procurement initiative across the state and put the Public Distribution System (PDS) in place. Before that, he also served as a Union Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre. In the 2023 Chhattisgarh Assembly polls, Raman Singh represented his party from the Rajnandgaon seat and defeated Congress candidate Girish Dewangan by a margin of 45,084 votes.
3 / 5Arun Sao | Arun Sao, the Chhattisgarh BJP president and Bilaspur MP, is among one of the most prominent OBC leaders of the party. He belongs to the Sahu Samaj, reportedly the biggest OBC community in the state. Sao contested polls from the Lormi seat and beat Thaneshvar Sahu of the Congress by a huge margin of 45,891 votes. (Image: Arun Sao/X)
4 / 5Vishnu Deo Sai | A former Union Minister and four-time Lok Sabha MP, Vishnu Deo Sai is also one of the potential candidates for the Chief Minister's post. The 59-year-old is among the senior tribal leaders in Chhattisgarh. He has also served as the state president of the BJP Chhattisgarh from 2020 to 2022. Sai contested the 2023 state polls from Kunkuri seat and won by 25,541 votes. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
5 / 5Renuka Singh | Renuka Singh is the Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs and can be an ideal candidate if the party decides on a woman's face. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Singh won from Surguja by over 1.5 lakh votes. This election year, Singh contested Assembly polls from the Bharatpur-Sonhat seat and defeated Congress' Gulab Singh Kamro by a margin of 4,919 votes.
