With less than a month left for the much-awaited assembly elections in Jharkhand, the seat-sharing talks are far from being over amongst the INDIA bloc parties. However, on Tuesday, a day after Congress released the first list of candidates, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) came up with their respective lists of candidates.
According to the poll schedule shared by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the assembly elections in Jharkhand are slated to take place in two phases on November 13 and November 20 respectively while the last date for filing nominations of the first phase ends on October 25. The counting of votes and declaration of results will take place on November 23.
JMM releases first list of 35 candidates
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha on Tuesday released its first list of 35 candidates fielding Chief Minister Hemant Soren from Barhait and Kalpana Soren from Gandey segments. CM Soren is the sitting MLA from Barhait (ST) constituency in Sahibganj district.
In the 2019 assembly polls, CM Soren emerged victorious by 25,740 votes over his nearest BJP rival Simon Malto while his wife Kalpana Soren had won the Gandey bypoll by 27,149 votes over her nearest BJP rival Dilip Kumar Verma.
Furthermore, Basant Soren, the incumbent chief minister's brother has been fielded from Dumka, Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Rabindranath Mahto from Nala, Minister Mithilesh Thakur from Garhwa, Sonu Sudivya from Giridih and Bebi Devi from Dumri.
The other candidates announced by the JMM include Dipak Birua from Chaibasa and Kedar Hazara, a three-term sitting MLA of BJP who joined the party recently, from Jamua.
Congress releases 1st list of 21 candidates
The Congress on Monday released its first list of 21 candidates fielding Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon from the Lohardaga seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes. Oraon, also a former police officer, is a former Jharkhand Congress chief.
Senior Congress leader and the party's in-charge for Tripura, Odisha and Nagaland, Ajoy Kumar, will contest the election from the Jamshedpur East constituency.
Among others, Shipli Neha Tirkey has been fielded from the Mandar (ST) constituency. She is the incumbent MLA from the seat. Her father, Bandhu Tirkey, is the chairman of the Congress's manifesto committee for the Jharkhand polls. In Jharkhand, the Congress shares an alliance with the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).
RJD releases list of 6 candidates
Besides JMM, another member of the INDIA bloc, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Tuesday released a list of six candidates for the Jharkhand assembly polls. According to PTI, the candidates were declared soon after RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said a consensus was reached on sharing of seats.
The party nominated Suresh Paswan from Deoghar, Sanjay Prasad Yadav from Godda and Subhash Yadav from Koderma.
Rashmi Prakash will contest from Chatra, Naresh Prasad Singh from Vishrampur and Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav from Hussainabad, it said.
In the previous polls, the party contested seven seats and ended up as runners-up in five of those.
32 candidates file nominations
Thirty-two candidates filed their nomination papers on Tuesday for the first phase of the assembly polls in Jharkhand, an election official said. With these, the total number of nominations filed in various assembly constituencies till now has reached 57, the official further added.
On November 13, as many as 43 assembly constituencies will go to polls. The nomination process for the phase started on October 18 and will conclude on October 25.
"Thirty-two candidates have filed their nomination papers on Tuesday. Till Monday, 25 candidates had filed nominations,” Chief Electoral Officer K Ravi Kumar said.
The nomination process for the second phase of elections to 38 assembly seats started on Tuesday but no document was filed on the very first day.
