BJP and JMM Announce More Candidates for Jharkhand Polls

Ranchi: The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on Thursday announced its second list of 15 candidates for the Jharkhand assembly polls, taking the total number of party’s nominees for the elections to 18.

Sitting MLAs Champai Soren (Seraikela-ST), Dasrath Gagrai (Kharsawan-ST), Dipak Birua (Chaibasa-ST), Niral Purty (Majhgaon-ST), Joba Manjhi (Manoharpur-ST), Seema Mahato (Silli), Babita Mahato (Gomia) and Vikas Kumar Munda (Tamar) have been re-nominated by the party, according to the list.

The party has also announced the names of Sabita Mahato (Ichagarh), Mahua Majhi (Ranchi), Sameer Mohanty (Baharagora), Sanjeev Sardar (Potka-ST), Jigga Susaran Horo (Sisai-ST) and Ramdas Soren (Ghatsila-ST).

The JMM, the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had recently announced a pre-poll alliance in the state. Former chief minister and JMM working president Hemant Soren will be the alliance’s chief ministerial face.

The Congress will contest 31 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand. The RJD will contest on seven seats, while the largest chunk of the alliance share has gone to the JMM, which will contest on 43 seats.

The BJP also announced two lists of 16 candidates on Thursday for the forthcoming Jharkhand assembly elections, taking the total number of its declared contestants to 69.

The two lists contained the names of a single candidate Vinod Singh from Hussainabad and the other list had 15 names.

The lists follow two others declared by the party. In the first list, which was declared last week, names of 52 contestants featured. The second list declared on Tuesday contained only the name of Sukhdeo Bhagat, former PCC president who joined the saffron party on October 23.

Among those who featured in the lists of candidates declared on Thursday are the former Left leader Aparna Sengupta and ex-Congress MLA Deo Kumar Dhan.

Sengupta has been nominated from the Nirsa seat, while Dhan has been allotted Mandar(ST) constituency. Both of them joined the BJP some months ago.

BJP has re-nominated Speaker Dinesh Oraon from Sisai (ST) seat, while the state Land and Revenue Minister Amar Kumar Bauri, who was one of the six JVM-P MLAs merged with the BJP in 2015, will contest from Chandankiyari(SC) seat.

Rural Development Minister Neelkanth Singh Munda has been nominated from Khunti (ST) seat.

One of the lists declared during the day has a single name, while another had the names of 15 others.

The BJP lists show that there will be electoral fight with NDA ally AJSU party at Lohardaga, Chakradharpur, Sindri, Simaria, Hussainabad and Chandankiyari constituencies, where the regional party has also announced candidates.

AJSU has so far declared 12 candidates.

Former BJP chief whip Radhakrishna Kishore and ex-Jharkhand PCC president Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu have joined AJSU. Both the leaders aspire to re-contest from Chhatarpur (SC) and Ghatsila (ST) constituencies respectively while the BJP has already nominated candidates for both.

Jharkhand will vote in five phases, with the first one on November 30 and the last on December 20. Results will be declared on December 23.

(With PTI inputs)