The Communist Party of India (CPI) has severed its ties with the INDIA bloc in Jharkhand for the Lok Sabha elections and announced candidates in four constituencies — Chatra, Lohardaga, Palamu and Dumka.

The CPI also claimed that they are waiting for clearance from their party central command to name candidates in four more parliamentary seats in Jharkhand.

There are 14 Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand and the CPI does not have any MPs nor it has any MLAs in the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly having the coalition of JMM-Congress-RJD ruling since December 2019.

CPI Jharkhand general secretary Mahendra Pathak speaking to The Telegraph said that they have announced candidates for four seats.

“Our candidates Abhay Bhuiyan will be filing nominations for the Palamau seat, Mahendra Oraon from Lohardaga, Arjun Kumar from Chatra and Rajesh Kumar Kisku from Dumka. We have got clearance from our party central command for these four Lok Sabha seats,” said Pathak.

Pathak further claimed that they have named candidates for four more Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand.

“We have given a list of candidates for four more Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand for consideration of our party central command and if we get their clearance then we will put candidates in Hazaribagh, Giridih, Jamshedpur and Ranchi seats,” added Pathak.

He said that they had requested the Congress and members of the INDIA bloc to give them one seat in Hazaribagh and in return, they would support their candidate in the remaining 13 seats.

“However our request was not heeded and Congress announced its candidate from Hazaribagh (Jai Prakash Bhai Patel). So we would be putting our candidate and fighting the election in CPI name and not INDIA bloc,” said Pathak.

Significantly, the CPI has fielded candidates against Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor in Kerala.

The CPI’s Bhuvneshwar Mehta reached the Lok Sabha by winning the Hazaribagh seat in 1991 and 2004.

CPI-ML’s Vinod Singh (Bagodar MLA) is the only Left party candidate who will be contesting on the INDIA bloc from the Koderma parliamentary seat.

Meanwhile, apart from three seats in which the Congress has announced its candidates (Hazaribagh, Khunti and Lohardaga), no other party including ruling coalition members RJD and JMM have announced candidates for any of the Jharkhand parliamentary seats so far.

The BJP has announced candidates for 13 Lok Sabha seats and given Giridih to its ally AJSU.