Setting aside a popular political dictum that Bastar holds the key to power in the state, the 24 assembly constituencies in Bilaspur division would now decide who will form the next government in Chhattisgarh. So far the BJP's Amit Shah has held two public meetings and Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed one in the division in the last one month, reports R Krishna Das.
Officials said while two commandos, identified as constables Linju N and Fateh Singh had succumbed to their bullet injuries on Thursday, their collegaue Lakshman Singh died on Friday.
The party renominated Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram seat.
'We also urge you to take steps to control the activities of groups, such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,' said the letter signed by 34 top American lawmakers.
The Communist Party of India - Maoist, which had claimed responsibility for the May 25 attack that left many Chhattisgarh Congress leaders dead, on Thursday denied that the incident had any political link.
Chhattisgarh Congress on Sunday released a 20-point "charge sheet" against Raman Singh government, accusing it of failing to tackle Naxalism and practising corruption.
"The villagers came first, and then the Naxalites, dressed in black. They were some 300 Naxalites, all wearing black," a jawan of the Central Reserve Police Force said.
He accused Naxalites of using tribal villagers as a shield.
Re-polling at two booths in Antagarh assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh's Maoist-hit Kanker district will be held on Saturday, an official said on Wednesday.
Rediff.com's data journalists have broken down 2012 district-wise National Crime Record's Bureau data into a constituency-wise listing.
Four personnel were also injured in the Naxal attack and two of them were stated to be critical.
The police said the Bastar region, including the Bijapur district where the attack took place in the wee hours yesterday, was peaceful and no incident of Naxal violence was reported from any parts of the region on Saturday.
Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) R K Vij told UNI that four constables of the Naga Battalion, accompanied by two special police officers were returning after patrolling duty.
Among the killed were the CRPF Assistant Commandant Vikas Chandra and constable J N Chetia of 43 batallion of the central force.
Rediff.com's data journalists have broken down 2012 district-wise National Crime Record's Bureau data into a constituency-wise listing.
The bodies of four police officials, who were abducted on Monday by Naxals, were found in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bijapur district on Wednesday.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh will resume his 'Vikas Yatra' from August 17 which was suspended in the wake of the deadly Naxal attack on Congress convoy on May 25.
The enhanced allowance will be applicable to all paramilitary personnel deployed in Jammu and Kashmir and Naxal-hit areas.
Three Naxals, including two women, were on Saturday gunned down by security forces at two different places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bastar division, taking the total number of ultras killed in separate gun-battles in the region this month to 21.
A CoBRA company has about 100 personnel each.
70 per cent voting was recorded across 18 constituencies of Bastar and Rajnandgaon till 3 pm in the first phase of assembly election in Chhattisgarh, where violence by Naxals who have called for a poll boycott left a Central Reserve Police Force jawan dead.
As the Congress party prepares to launch protests against the economic slowdown, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel tells Archis Mohan that his state has escaped its effects as his government has pursued policies that have put money in the pockets of workers, farmers, housewives and tribals, which has helped spur demand.
Referring to Maoists sympathisers, Singh said Naxals have got a very strong support system from Raipur to Delhi.
Two unidentified men armed with sharp-edged weapons barged into a church in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district and allegedly set ablaze a Bible.
Three Naxals were arrested on Tuesday and a cache of arms, ammunition and electronic gadgets seized after security forces busted a Maoist transit camp in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district, the police said.
Vidya Charan Shukla, a Congressman by origin who changed parties and held key portfolios including external affairs, achieved fame during the infamous Emergency as a propagandist for Indira Gandhi's government. Son of illustrious Congressman and freedom fighter Pandit Ravishankar Shukla, the first chief minister of the re-organised Madhya Pradesh, V C Shukla entered Lok Sabha from Mahasamund after winning in the second general elections.
The prime minister will be visiting an education city, aimed at providing education to under-privileged children living in the area
Gruesome details are slowly emerging about the infamous Chhattisgarh massacre.
The Tata group has decided to set up a mega steel plant in the naxal infested Bastar region of Chhattisgarh with an investment of about Rs 5000 crore (Rs 50 billion).
Congress had won won in the assembly polls barely five months ago in the same three states -- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
The Naxals are planning to enforce "poll boycott" in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls by disrupting the election process in Maoist affected states.
An FIR was lodged against DU Professor Nandini Sundar for the murder of Shamnath Baghel, based on the complaint of his wife on Saturday.
Congress leader Ajit Jogi has filed a defamation case against Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party unit president Narendra Singh Tomar after the latter alleged that the former Chhattisgarh chief minister was involved in the conspiracy behind the fatal Naxal attack on Congress leaders in Bastar.
Alarmed over unabated Naxal violence, the Centre and the state governments have decided to go after the top leadership of the Communist Party of India - Maoist through intelligence based operations. The decision was taken at a special session of chief ministers of Naxal affected states -- held in Delhi on Wednesday -- in the wake of the May 25 bloodbath in Chhattisgarh's Bastar that left 27 people, including top state Congress leaders, dead.
The central government will hold an all-party meeting this week to finalise a strategy to resolve the Maoist problem decisively in the wake of the audacious attack in Bastar that killed 27 people, including three prominent Congress leaders.
Did the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh ignore the standard operating procedures in providing security to Congress leaders who were ambushed during their 'Parivartan Yatra' near the border of the Bastar-Sukma districts on Saturday evening?
The commission is still awaiting recorded statement of 20 other victims of sexual violence by the security personnel.
'As long as you are talking about Adivasis in Bastar or the brutalisation of the State nobody raises an eyebrow. But the moment you talk about Kashmiri Pandits -- after all, we were a religious minority in Kashmir -- and how they being in a minority were targeted it doesn't go down well and no one speaks about it.' 'That is the saddest and most ironical aspect of this whole tragedy,' Rahul Pandita, a Kashmiri Pandit and author of Our Moon Has Blood Clots, a book that chronicles the plight of his community in the strife-torn Kashmir Valley, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com
A one-day statewide bandh called by the Congress to protest against the Kanker rapes involving minor inmates of a government-run tribal girls' hostel was a complete success across Chhattisgarh on Wednesday.