CPI-ML names candidates for Koderma & Palamu, to support LF and GA in other seats

Ranchi: CPI-ML will field Rajdhanwar MLA Raj Kumar Yadav from Koderma and Sushma Mehta from Palamu seats for the Lok Sabha elections, party general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said on Monday, adding that his organization will support the Left Front and the mahagathbandhan candidates in other constituencies to defeat BJP.

Speaking at a press conference at the party office, Bhattacharya said that compromising with the Koderma seat for sake of remaining in the opposition’s alliance would have benefited BJP. “Our party is confident of winning this seat,” he asserted.

“JVM-P president Babulal Marandi, who will contest as the mahagathbandhan candidate from Koderma, has faced a series of defeat in recent elections. Raj Kumar Yadav had beaten him in Rajdhanwar assembly elections. He has become a non-performing asset. In contrast, our candidates finished second in the last Lok Sabha election in Koderma. In this situation, it would have been irrational for us to leave Koderma,” he added.

Bhattacharya said that in the absence of Left parties, the opposition alliance is no longer a mahagathbandhan but a simple gathbandhan. “We will, however, campaign for opposition nominees in other seats where we aren’t contesting,” he said.

He said even though seats have not been finalized, his party will contest from around 20 seats across the country.

Bhattacharya said that instead of launching campaigns like On BJP’s ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ campaign, the BJP government should have taken measures for increasing the wages of security guards who work 16 hours a day for meagre amounts. “I want to ask the PM how capitalists like Vijay Mallaya and Nirav Modi escaped from India after becoming bank defaulters if the chowkidar and his colleagues were guarding the country so ably,” he said.

Bhattacharya said NDA will be wiped out in Jharkhand because of the double anti-incumbency factors of governments both in the state and at the Centre. “Instead of calling it a double engine, the central and state governments have become a double bulldozer governments that caused destruction all over,” he said, adding that the state became an experiment ground for mob-lynchings during the current regime. “The NDA rule at Centre is worse than what happened during the Emergency. People will give a fitting reply to it,” he said.

Bhattacharya informed that CPI-ML will organize commemoration programmes until April 14 to mark the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.