Pressure politics on between parties in state before announcement of polls in Jharkhand

Ranchi: The political parties in the state are currently flexing their muscles as part of their pressure politics to bargain a good number of seats for themselves with the announcement of assembly polls expected by the end of this month.

AJSU which is a junior ally in the NDA government has laid its stake on about one and a half dozen seats including those which are currently held by the BJP MLAs, on the other hand, LJP which had contested one seat in the previous polls is also demanding more number of seats for it.

However, amid the pressure politics, the senior leadership of the BJP has adopted a silence mood and it was due to this attitude that since beginning JD-U decided to stay away and go alone in the polls. The leaders of the JD-U who are in coalition with the BJP in Bihar have given a free hand to the Jharkhand unit to field its candidates on as many seats as possible.

It is being expected that only after the dates for the elections are declared a meeting of the NDA will be held in which a call on seat sharing will be announced.

On the contrary despite claiming to be united the opposition in Jharkhand was a divided house. Going by the results in the Lok Sabha polls it was unlikely that a similar sort of agreement will be made for the Vidhan Sabha elections mainly due to ambitions of the regional outfits.

JMM’s Hemant Soren wants to be projected as the Chief Minister candidate of the opposition. Earlier the senior leadership of the Congress party had accepted his condition in lieu off which the JMM helped the Congress to win a Rajya Sabha seat and also allowed the national party to contest more Lok Sabha seats in the state, however, now the Congress leaders appear to be making a U-turn on their commitment. On the other hand, another key constituent of the opposition is the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha led by former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi.

Marandi internally has been never able to accept the leadership of Hemant Soren however unfortunately for him he is in the backseat of politics as in the previous Assembly Elections 8 MLAs who had won on his party symbol out of them, 7 joined the BJP and Babulal Marandi also ended up losing in the Lok Sabha elections.

It is widely expected that he would go alone in the polls and would be joined by some smaller outfits and the left parties however recently the JD-U has offered its friendship to Mr Marandi but any concrete picture is yet to emerge out.

As far as the campaigning is concerned the BJP is far ahead from its rivals as Chief Minister Raghubar Das was traveling across the length and the breadth of the straight-through his Johar Jan Aashirwad Yatra and asking the people to vote for the Double engine government, on the other hand, it is only the Hemant Soren of the JMM who to a certain extent has been campaigning in the state through his Badlao Yatra.