Former Jharkhand chief minister Champai Soren.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday released its first list of 66 candidates for the Jharkhand assembly polls, nominating former chief minister Babulal Marandi from Dhanwar in Giridih district.
Marandi is currently the leader of the opposition in the state assembly and was the first CM of Jharkhand when the state was created along with Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh in 2000.
The party also gave a ticket to another former Chief Minister Champai Soren from Saraikela. Soren served as CM for a brief period when the Enforcement Directorate arrested Hemant Soren in an alleged money laundering case.
Champai quit the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha to join the BJP after the party reinstated Hemant as CM after the latter got bail from the Jharkhand High Court.
BJP has also given the ticket to Sita Soren, wife of JMM chief Shibu Soren’s elder son Durga. Sita had opposed a proposal to nominate Hemant Soren’s wife Kalpana as CM when ED arrested Hemant Soren. She later quit JMM to join the BJP.
Kalpana, who is now an MLA from Gandey, will face off against Munia Devi, whose name figures in the list of BJP candidates.
The party has given tickets to the wives of two former CMs.
Former CM and union minister Arjun Munda’s wife Meera Munda will be making her electoral debut from Potka. Arjun Munda was a union minister in the union government but lost the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Geeta Koda, wife of former CM Madhu Koda has also won a BJP nomination from Jagannathpur. Koda was an Independent MLA who served as CM with the support of JMM, RJD, and Congress.
BJP will be contesting 68 out of 81 seats in Jharkhand. Its allies, All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) have been allocated 10 seats. The other NDA allies JD(U) and Chirag Paswan’s Lokjanshakti Party have got 2 and 1 seats respectively.
Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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