Palamu all set to witness war of ballots

Ranchi, Mar 18 (UNI) With about 15 canditates in the fray, Palamu is all set for the Parliamentary bypolls on March 29.

The bypoll was necessitated after Manoj Bhuiyan of RJD lost his Lok Sabha seat following the cash-for-query scam.

The recent rallies of Union Steel Minister and LJP president Ramvilas Paswan and BJP's National vice-president and former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha in favour of their candidates Umesh Paswan and Jawahar Paswan had created much of heat during the camapigns.

Sources said Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and Union Rural Development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh would also address the election rallies from March 25.

The main contest is believed to be in between Ghuran Ram from RJD and the BJP's Jawahar Paswan. The others fightingthe polls were Kameshwar Baitha of BSP, Prabhat Bhuyian of JVM (P), and Sudha Choudhary of SP.

The Palamu parliamentary constituency with 13,66,000 voters consisted of two districts- Garwah and Palamu- and six assembly segments-Daltonganj, Bhawnathpur, Chatarpur, Garwah, Hussainabad and Vishrampur.

Out of six assembly seats four belonged to the UPA partners.

According to political observers, the bypoll also was a 'do or die' for the former Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari who resigned as MLA from Daltoganj following internal party scuffle over party's candidature for the seat.

Besides, JVM (P) led by Jharkhand's former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi despite being dissatisfied with the Election Commission's directive to change its party symbol from ''key-lock' to ''nagara'' had announced to leave no stone unturned to make its present felt in the bypoll.

About 21 niminations were filed for the bypoll but only 15 were left after the nomination of three was cancelled and three withdrew theri candidature.

Counting would be held on April first.

State government had announced to deploy about 50 companies of paramilitary forces including 15,000 security personnels.

UNI