Congress presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge with with former JKPCC Chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir
Credit: PTI photo
New Delhi: The Congress' Central Election Committee met here to finalise candidates for the upcoming Jharkhand Assembly polls and cleared nominees for about 70 per cent of the seats the party would contest, AICC in-charge of the state Ghulam Ahmad Mir said on Monday
The Congress leader exuded confidence that a final seat sharing deal with the I.N.D.I.A bloc allies would be clinched on Tuesday.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary (in-charge, Organisation) K C Venugopal, Jharkhand Congress chief Keshav Mahto Kamlesh and Mir, among others, attended the meeting at the party headquarters.
The meeting comes two days after Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said the I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners will contest the Assembly polls together and the Congress and the JMM will field candidates in 70 of the 81 seats.
Seat-sharing talks are on with alliance partners -- the RJD and the Left parties -- for the remaining 11 seats, he had said.
Speaking with reporters after the CEC, Mir said, "There was a discussion on the overall political situation of Jharkhand. After that seats were discussed one by one. We discussed about 70 per cent of the total seats we would be fighting. The list would be put by late night or tomorrow morning." Some seats were asked to be revisited so that would be done as per the process, he said.
"Last time we were three partners -- the Congress, the JMM, and the RJD -- now we also have CPI(ML). As many as 70 seats had been cleared and out of the 11 seats that were left, seven to eight seats have gone to respective parties on the basis of merit. Two to three seats are there where there are multiple claims and that would be figured out by tonight," Mir said.
"We will give a clear cut picture by tomorrow afternoon as to which party is contesting which seat and which party is contesting what number of seats," he said.
Ultimately, the aim is to enter the polls with a better alliance, Mir asserted.
The Assembly polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20. The votes will be counted on November 23.
"The I.N.D.I.A. bloc will contest the Jharkhand Assembly polls together. It has been decided during the seat-sharing talks with the allies that the Congress and the JMM will field candidates in 70 of the 81 seats," Soren had said after meeting with the alliance partners here.
He had said the decision was taken after consultations with allies and the candidates would be announced soon.
Soren had said the JMM-led alliance was confident of retaining power in the state on the back of its development work.
Expressing its disappointment with the JMM and Congress over seat-sharing for the Jharkhand assembly polls, the RJD on Sunday had said it would not settle for less than 12 seats, but it will not sabotage the prospects of the INDIA bloc even if it goes solo.
"Less than 12-13 seats are not acceptable to us as the RJD has a strong hold on 18-20 seats. If we are asked to contest three-four seats, we are not ready to make any sacrifices," Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesperson Manoj Jha had said.
The NDA on Friday announced its seat-sharing formula among its partners.
The BJP will contest 68 seats, the AJSU Party 10, the JD(U) two and the LJP (Ram Vilas) one.
Filing of nomination papers for the 43 Assembly constituencies of Jharkhand, which are going to polls on November 13 in the first phase, began on Friday and will continue till October 25.
In 2019, the JMM-led alliance won 47 seats in the Jharkhand Assembly, including 30 of the JMM and 16 of the Congress.
The BJP had secured 25 seats, the JVM-P three, the AJSU Party two, the CPI-ML and the NCP one each, and two seats were bagged by independents.