Jharkhand’s ruling INDIA bloc announced on Saturday it had reached a deal to jointly contest the assembly elections, although one of its key constituents said it had not been consulted, and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a list of 66 candidates, including recent the chief minister’s predecessor Champai Soren, who left the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha recently.
Chief minister Hemant Soren revealed the INDIA bloc’s alliance formula in what was a hurriedly convened press conference, stating his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and ally Congress will fight 70 of the 81 seats, with the remaining 11 set aside for coalition partners Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Left parties,
“We have decided to include Left in our existing alliance of JMM-Congress-RJD. It has been decided that the JMM and Congress would contest 70 seats while the other two parties would contest the rest,” said Hemant Soren as he stood flanked by senior Congress leaders including Jharkhand in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir.
The announcement marks a significant shift from the 2019 assembly polls, where the JMM, Congress, and RJD contested in a pre-poll alliance, distributing 43, 31, and seven seats respectively. The alliance secured a comfortable majority with 47 seats in the 81-member assembly, with JMM winning 30, Congress 16, and RJD one seat.
While Hemant Soren did not disclose the breakup of parties finalised for 2024 polls, people aware of the matter said the JMM would contest 41, Congress 29 while the RJD and CPI-ML have been offered seven and four seats, respectively.
The announcement however did not go down well with the RJD leadership, which described the decision as unilateral. Senior RJD leader and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha said the decision was unacceptable and all options including to go solo in the election were open for the party.
“We are expressing our displeasure as any announcement ought to be done after due consultations with all stakeholders. We were not consulted even when entire leadership of the party including our LOP (Tejashwi Yadav), national general secretary, state in-charge and state president are present in the city. In Bihar, we include even those parties who get one or two seats in such decision making,” said Jha.
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Underlining that all options for the party were open, Jha said they have identified 15-18 seats where they can ‘defeat the BJP alone’.
The discord prompted urgent meetings between Congress and JMM leaders with RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, who has been in Ranchi since Friday night. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who was in town for a social event, also met with Yadav and Soren at a city hotel before leaving for his scheduled engagement.
Meanwhile, the BJP, looking to unseat the JMM-led alliance, unveiled its first list of 66 candidates for the assembly elections. The list features several prominent names, including party president Babulal Marandi, who will contest from Dhanwar, and former chief minister Champai Soren, who has been fielded from Saraikela.
It named Sita Soren, sister-in-law of CM Hemant Soren, as its nominee from Jamtara. The list also includes former Union minister Sudarshan Bhagat and Geeta Kora, the lone Congress MP from the state who recently joined the BJP.
Babulal Marandi, who won the Dhanwar seat in 2019 on a Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) ticket, defeated his nearest BJP rival by a margin of 17,550 votes. His candidacy from the same constituency on a BJP ticket this time around signals the party’s intent to consolidate its position in the region.
The nomination of Champai Soren from Seraikela is seen as a strategic move by the BJP to strengthen its connection with the Scheduled Tribes, a crucial support base traditionally aligned with the JMM. Champai Soren, who joined the BJP on August 30 after resigning from the JMM citing “insult” and dissatisfaction, had won the Seraikela seat in 2019 by a margin of 15,667 votes against the BJP candidate.
The 67-year-old leader’s brief stint as chief minister earlier this year, following Hemant Soren’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, adds weight to his candidacy and potentially bolsters the BJP’s tribal outreach in the state.
The BJP is contesting 68 of the 81 assembly seats, leaving the rest for its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). On Friday, the NDA had announced its seat-sharing arrangement, with the BJP contesting 68 seats, AJSU party 10, JD(U) two, and Lok Janshakti party one seat.
The Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20. The last date of filing nominations for phase 1 is October 25 and phase 2 is October 29. The nominations will be scrutinised for phase 1 on October 28 and for phase 2 October 30. The last dates for withdrawal of candidature for phases 1 and 2 are October 30 and November 1, respectively.
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