Mungeli, Nov 4 (IANS): Ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, the high-profile Lormi Assembly constituency located in Mungeli district, will see state BJP chief and MP Arun Sao pitted against the Congress' Thaneshwar Sahu, who will be fighting the election from this Assembly seat for the first time.

The Lormi Assembly constituency is one such seat where neither the BJP nor the Congress have been able to win twice. This is why the big question is: will the Congress be able to wrest this crucial Assembly seat from the BJP.

Both Arun Sao and Thaneshwar Sahu belong to the Sahu community and are considered grassroot leaders who have risen to great heights in Chhattisgarh politics.

Arun Sao is currently the state BJP president and won from Bilaspur in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Before becoming the state BJP chief, he served as the district president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1996 and was also the secretary of the Sahu Samaj Youth Wing.

Congress candidate Thaneshwar Sahu served as the president of the Yuva Sahu Sanghathan in 1990 and in 1997 he was made the state Congress election in-charge during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

From the past three Assembly elections in Lormi, it is clear that in every state election the candidate from the opposition party has always registered a win. In the 2008 Assembly elections, Dharamjit Singh of the Congress had won, while in 2013, Tokhan Sahu of the BJP emerged victorious and in the 2018 Assembly election, Dharamjit Singh of the Congress defeated the BJP candidate.

In this Assembly election, both the Congress and the BJP have projected new leaders as their party candidates from Lormi. The big question is whether this time the electoral trend will be breached or will it persist.

BJP's Arun Sao is in the electoral fray this time and if he wins from Lormi, the electoral trend will remain intact and if he is defeated then the trend which has been the norm for the last three Assembly elections will be breached.