Jharkhand will go to the polls for three Lok Sabha seats on May 20 when the fate of eminent leaders would be sealed in the fifth phase of general elections.
The Hazaribagh, Koderma and Chatra Lok Sabha constituencies are not alone; however, there is also a by-election for Gandey Assembly Constituency where Kalpana Murmu Soren, wife of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, will be contesting as JMM candidate.
Ms. Soren is being challenged directly by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Dilip Verma. The seat of Gandey Assembly was left vacant after JMM MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad resigned from his position because he is currently a Rajya Sabha member.
These three Lok Sabha seats cover seven districts are Hazaribagh, Ramgarh,Koderma, Giridih, Chatra,Latehar and Palamu with 16 assembly constituencies in them.
The prominent seat in Koderma in Jharkhand is Annapurna Devi, BJP candidate who will face Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) candidate Vinod Singh who has been Bagodar’s MLA thrice. Nevertheless; Jai Prakash Verma a rebel leader from JMM has also filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate.
Bagodar,Dhanwar,Gandey Assembly segment,Jamua and Koderma are all under this constituency
This was represented by Babulal Marandi earlier before becoming Bihar’s first Chief Minister in 2004 after out carving state from Bihar.
The mica belt
Hazaribagh will have a new Face as its MP and an intense contest is expected as Mr. Patel was the former MLA from Mandu and represented the Assembly constituency for three terms. In New Delhi, Mr. Patel left his party, the BJP to join Congress in March.
Mr Yashwant was defeated by more than one lakh fifty thousand votes by Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta of Communist Party of India (CPI) in 2004.
On Monday, Aashir Sinha who is Jayant’s son and Mr Yashwant’s grandson attended election rally of Mr Patel at Barhi leading to speculations that he might join Congress. But Jharkhand state unit President Rajesh Thakur told The Hindu thathe only took part in the rally without any political intentions.
Damodar Pandey had defeated CPI candidate Mr Mehta, when congress last won this seat in1984.
Seat Chatra
In Chatra Lok Sabha seat two upper caste candidates are contesting. The population is dominated by Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Three communities jointly have over 75% vote share but it will be between Bhumihar and Brahmin candidates.
The BJP has fielded Kalicharan Singh from Bhumihar caste while Krishnandan Tripathi from Congress is a Brahmin leader. Its two term MP Sunil Kumar Singh who won the seat in 2014 and 2019 has been dropped by the party. In the previous election, Mr Singh defeated Manoj Kumar Yadav of Congress.
A teacher by profession who resides in Chatra, Kalicharan has never contested any election before thus expecting to ride on PM Modi’s popularity wave.
Mr Modi campaigned for Hazaribagh candidate Mr Jaiswal and Chatra for Mr Singh on May 11th ahead of general elections. On the other hand, Mr Tripathi is a former MLA and former Minister with good political experience.
Chatra Lok Sabha seat consists of five Assembly segments –Simaria, Chatra, Manika, Latehar and Panki.
Dhirendra Agarwal from Marwari community has won this seat thrice in 1996, 1998 and 2004. Similarly, Inder Singh Ramdhari representing Sikh community won it as an Independent candidate in 2009.
Once Lalu Prasad’s stronghold; Chatra constituency is Naxal-affected and his party won this seat twice in 1999 and 2004.
