Jharkhand election 2019: Ignored by BJP, 'Rebel' Saryu Roy may take on Raghubar Das

Jamshedpur, Nov 17: In a dramatic turn of events, Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday, released its fourth list of candidates, in which state Food and Supply Minister Saryu Roy name was not included.

Roy on Saturday expressed anguish over the BJP sidelining him and said he had purchased nomination form for both Jamshedpur West and East seats and that he would announce his decision on Sunday.

He also indicated that he might go against the party line for putting his ticket on hold.

Moreover, he may challenge Chief Minister Raghubar Das himself in the elections.

The 68-year-old senior BJP leader emerged as a political figure after the Jai Prakash Narayan-led JP Andolan against Indira Gandhi in 1975. He is an old friend of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and was one of the petitioners in the multi-crore fodder scam.

Despite being a part of it, Roy has criticised the government many times.

According to sources, Roy is preparing to file his nomination from the Jamshedpur East Assembly seat from where Das is the BJP candidate.

Jharkhand will vote in five phases, with the first on November 30 and the last on December 20. Results will be declared on December 23. The Jarkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal had recently announced a pre-poll tie-up for the state with former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren as the alliance's CM face.

The Congress will contest 31 seats out of 81 seats in the Jharkhand assembly. The RJD will contest on seven seats, while the largest chunk of the alliance share has gone to the JMM, which will contest elections on 43 seats.