‘Mighty’ BJP and suspense over three Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand

JMM working president Hemant Soren (center) with Jagarnath Mahto (right) and Sudivya Kumar on Saturday

Ranchi/Kolkata:  It has been over a week, since Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared the names of its Lok Sabha election candidates for ten seats in Jharkhand. However, the name of candidates for Koderma, Chatra and state capital Ranchi is yet to be announced. All these three seats were won by the party in 2014. Out of the 14 parliamentary constituencies, Giridih has been left for its alliance partner AJSU.

And in last seven days, a lot of action seems to be going on within BJP, which rules in the both center and Jharkhand state, barring the announcement the names of the three candidates.

BJP successfully broke away Annapurna Devi, former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) state chief and took her into its fold. Party also managed to bring in Girinath Singh, another senior RJD leader.

Amid all, the supporters of Ram Tahal Choudhary, the outgoing Member of Parliament from Ranchi created ruckus at the party office in state capital.

But the ruling BJP, which claims that they are going to win more seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha election than it did in 2014, has not declared names of Koderma seat for which they have roped in Annapurna Devi, nor they have shown courage to name a candidate for Ranchi seat, where Choudhary’s supporters have warned of dire consequences, nor for Chatra seat.

Significantly, BJP’s state president Laxman Gilua, in a press conference on Friday stated that the performance of three MPs — Ravindra Rai (Koderma), Choudhary and Sunil Singh (Chatra) have been poor, so they might not get tickets.

On Saturday morning, some vernacular media reported that the outgoing MP from Koderma, Rai whose future seems uncertain with BJP, could join Jharkhand Vikash Morcha (JVM), which he had earlier joined for few years. According to the reports, Rai would be JVM’s candidate from Koderma instead of JVM chief Babulal Marandi.

However, when eNewsroom contacted Marandi, the former Chief Minister reacted by saying, “It is a planted news by BJP and its leaders, neither Rai is going to join JVM nor anybody else other than me will be contesting from Koderma seat.”

He then added, “Actually, BJP has been fearful since gathbandhan has formed. Its fear of losing is making it do such things. In fact today, my name has been declared for the Koderma seat,” he said.

The JVM chief added that BJP has no candidate to face gathbandhan, and it will fight with ‘borrowed’ players, “They (BJP) are delaying the names of these three seats, as they will fight with borrowed players.”

Meanwhile, the main opposition parties of Jharkhand, Congress, JMM, JVM and RJD is also to announce the names of their candidates in these three seats and other also. But on Saturday, JMM leader Sudivya Kumar Sonu shared a picture of party’s working president Hemant Soren, and Giridih’s probable candidate Jagarnath Mahto together in Ranchi, thereby ending all the speculations about JVM changing Mahto’s candidature for Giridih.

First published on https://enewsroom.in/