Palamu bypoll seen as do or die proxy battle for Namdhari

Ranchi, Mar 18 (UNI) The March 29 Palamu Lok Sabha byelection is seen as a 'do or die' proxy battle for former Jharkhand Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari who resigned as JD (U) MLA from Daltonganj following internal party scuffle over party's candidature for the seat.

The main contest is believed to be in between Ghuran Ram from RJD and the BJP's Jawahar Paswan. The others fighting the 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 consists 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.

Besides, JVM (P) led by 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.

Fifteen canditates are in the fray.

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 heat during the campaign.

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

About 21 nominations 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 1.

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

UNI