Jharkhand Assembly polls: After Lalu dials Soren, JMM and RJD agree to fight under INDIA 

RJD gets 6 seats, less than one seat it contested last Assembly election, Congress to field candidates on 30 seats

After the intervention of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief Lalu Prasad, the party’s seat sharing talks with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) ahead of Jharkhand Assembly election reached a conclusion on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) following which RJD released its list of candidates for six seats.

Both parties have agreed to contest the election in alliance with the INDIA bloc.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav met Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday morning and both had a short meeting before holding talks with the Jharkhand leadership of RJD.

Sources said that Mr. Prasad spoke to Mr. Soren over phone and talks were held between them for some time following which Mr. Soren agreed to give six seats to RJD.

“People of Jharkhand will teach a lesson to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which ruled the State for maximum years and ruined it. We all had talks with the respective leaders and decided to contest the election together as INDIA bloc. Once again, we will defeat BJP and Hemant Soren will become the Chief Minister,” Mr. Yadav said while speaking to the media outside a hotel in Ranchi.

At 9 p.m. on Tuesday, RJD released the list of its six candidates which includes Suresh Paswan from Deoghar, Sanjay Prasad Yadav from Godda, Subhas Yadav from Koderma, Rashmi Prakash (daughter in law of sitting MLA Satyanand Bhokta) from Chatra, Naresh Prasad Singh from Bishrampur, and Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav from Hussainabad.

The picture is now clear over the seat sharing in INDIA bloc as Jharkhand Congress State president Keshav Mahato Kamlesh, who returned to Ranchi from Delhi on Tuesday, made it clear that Congress will contest on 30 seats out of which 21 names were announced last night.

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) also announced the names of their three candidates which includes Rajkumar Yadav from Dhanwar, Chandradeo Mahato alias Bablu Mahato from Sindri, and Arup Chatterjee from Nirsa. The fourth seat is probably Bagodar from where its sitting MLA Vinod Singh is representing. JMM will contest the remaining 41 seats, however the party has not made the formal announcement yet.

In the 2019 Assembly election, the JMM contested 43 seats and won 30; the Congress contested 31 and won 16; and the RJD contested seven seats but won only one seat.

Upset with not getting the desired number in INDIA bloc, Communist Party of India (CPI) in Jharkhand has decided to field candidates in 15 Assembly constituencies.

Rumbling has also started in NDA after many leaders did not get the ticket and have started moving to JMM. Several BJP leaders, including three former MLAs, joined the ruling JMM in the presence of Mr. Soren on Monday.

The former legislators who switched sides on Monday night were Louis Marandi, Kunal Sarangi, and Lakshman Tudu. The development also comes barely two days after three-term BJP legislator Kedar Hazra and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) leader Umakant Rajak joined the JMM.

On Tuesday AJSU’s central general secretary Tarun Gupta rebelled against NDA and announced to contest the Assembly election from Jamtara seat.

Published - October 22, 2024 10:25 pm IST