Raipur:The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has long been looking to put up Muslim candidates in Chhattisgarh to widen its support base. It has finally found two.
The BSP, aiming to play spoiler between the state's major players - the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress - at this November's assembly election, is contesting all 90 seats at stake. Observers say its big problem so far had been the reluctance of Muslim politicians to be associated with it.
The BSP has now named 86 candidates, including the two Muslims. Sayed Yunus Ali will be the party nominee in Bilaspur and Sadik Ali in Raipur North.
"We are ready to produce a surprising result this time in Chhattisgarh, probably the BSP will be king-maker," Dauram Ratnakar, the party state unit chief, told IANS. He claimed that BSP now enjoyed support from all communities.
The BSP had won two seats - both reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates - in the last poll in 2003. Its leaders say they are working on a strategy to repeat the party's Uttar Pradesh's social engineering formula in Chhattisgarh and bag seats in double digits for the first time this year.
