Jharkhand Assembly Election: JMM, RJD To Fight Polls Under INDIA After Lalu Yadav Plays Pacifier

Following the intervention of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief Lalu Prasad, the party's seat-sharing discussions with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) ahead of the Jharkhand Assembly election were finalised on Tuesday, October 22, 2024.

Subsequently, the RJD unveiled its list of candidates for six seats. Both parties have agreed to contest the election in alliance under the INDIA bloc, reported The Hindu.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav met Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday morning, with the two holding a brief meeting before engaging in talks with RJD's Jharkhand leadership.

Sources revealed that Prasad had a phone conversation with Soren, during which they discussed matters for a while, leading to Soren agreeing to allocate six seats to the RJD.

"The people of Jharkhand will teach BJP, which governed the state for the longest time and ruined it, a lesson. We've held discussions with our respective leaders and have decided to contest the election together as part of the INDIA bloc. Once again, we will defeat the BJP, and Hemant Soren will become Chief Minister," Yadav told the media outside a Ranchi hotel.

At 9 p.m. on Tuesday, the RJD announced its list of six candidates, including Suresh Paswan from Deoghar, Sanjay Prasad Yadav from Godda, Subhas Yadav from Koderma, Rashmi Prakash (daughter-in-law of sitting MLA Satyanand Bhokta) from Chatra, Naresh Prasad Singh from Bishrampur, and Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav from Hussainabad.

The seat-sharing arrangement within the INDIA bloc is now clear.

Jharkhand Congress State President Keshav Mahato Kamlesh, who returned to Ranchi from Delhi on Tuesday, confirmed that Congress will contest 30 seats, having already announced 21 candidates the previous night.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has also announced its candidates for three seats: Rajkumar Yadav for Dhanwar, Chandradeo Mahato alias Bablu Mahato for Sindri, and Arup Chatterjee for Nirsa.

The fourth seat is likely to be Bagodar, currently represented by sitting MLA Vinod Singh. JMM will contest the remaining 41 seats, although a formal announcement is yet to be made.

In the 2019 Assembly election, JMM contested 43 seats and won 30; Congress contested 31 and secured 16; while RJD contested seven seats, winning only one.

However, discontent has emerged within the INDIA bloc, with the Communist Party of India (CPI) in Jharkhand deciding to field candidates in 15 constituencies, upset at not being given a satisfactory number of seats.

There is also unrest within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as several leaders, unhappy with not receiving tickets, have begun shifting to JMM. A number of BJP leaders, including three former MLAs, joined the ruling JMM in Soren's presence on Monday.

The former legislators who switched sides on Monday night were Louis Marandi, Kunal Sarangi, and Lakshman Tudu. This follows the defection of three-term BJP MLA Kedar Hazra and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) leader Umakant Rajak to JMM two days prior.

On Tuesday, AJSU's central general secretary, Tarun Gupta, rebelled against the NDA and declared his intention to contest the Assembly election from Jamtara.