Incarcerated Jharkhand’s former chief minister Hemant Soren ground rules issued from the jail have eased JMM’s decision-making in terms of candidate selection in the Lok Sabha polls.

The JMM, which is part of the ruling coalition (along with the Congress-RJD) in Jharkhand as part of the seat-sharing understanding in the INDIA bloc, has fielded candidates in five Lok Sabha seats of Jharkhand namely Jamshedpur, Dumka, Rajmahal, Singhbhum and Giridih.

JMM’s Giridih MLA Sudivya Kumar ‘Sonu’ considered close to Hemant and heading the core-campaigning committee of the JMM for the Gandey bypoll for party candidate Kalpana Murmu Soren (Hemant’s wife) admitted that the ‘ground rules’ specified by the party’s executive president have prevented the JMM from difficulties in selection of candidates and other critical decisions during the crucial Lok Sabha polls.

“Hemant ji was arrested months before elections and it was aimed at derailing our poll prospects, especially in terms of candidate’s selection. However, Hemant ji in March soon after the announcement of Lok Sabha polls by the Election Commission had issued some ground rules to the party’s second-rung leadership and chief minister (Champai Soren) from jail which helped the party in taking critical decisions in the absence of our leader (Hemant),” said Sudivya Kumar.

The most important point among the “ground rules” penned by Hemant and sent a letter through a party senior leader from Birsa Munda Central Jail specified that under no circumstances “imported” (turncoats) candidates should be given tickets.

Hemant was arrested by the ED in Ranchi on January 31 in an alleged money laundering case relating to a land scam. He is at present under judicial custody at Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi.

“Commitment to party and activeness in executing government’s schemes as MLA or MP was the other yardstick laid out by Hemant ji in the letter for selection of candidates. The party executive committee led by chief minister Champai followed it and even ignored the regional social engineering considerations for certain seats while selection of candidates,” said a Ranchi-based leader.

The leader cited the instance of a BJP leader from the Jamshedpur parliamentary seat who had defected from the JMM prior to the 2019 Assembly poll and joined the BJP and had made a bid for “ghar wapsi” with a hope to get a MP ticket for Jamshedpur.

“We followed the thumb rules issued by Hemant ji and he was politely denied the ticket though we knew he had been active in the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha area for the last few years and was quite popular among youths and would have helped our cause in the elections. Instead, the ticket was given to Sameer Mohanty after several rounds of discussion,” said the leader.