Ramgarh Assembly constituency in Jharkhand, where a byelection would be held on February 27, would prove to be the toughest test of the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance which has so far won four bypolls consecutively in the past three years.

The Election Commission on Wednesday announced the bypolls in Ramgarh along with five other Assembly constituencies across the country.

The results would be announced on March 2. The election was necessitated after the sitting Congress MLA Mamta Devi was disqualified following her conviction in December last year by the Hazaribagh district court in the Gola police firing case of 2016. She was awarded a punishment of five years imprisonment.

“It would be too premature to say at this stage on whose side the scales are tilted at this stage as the Congress, BJP and Ajsu are yet to announce their candidates (notification of the election would be announced by the Ramgarh district administration as per Election Commission schedule on January 31). However, it would be not easy for the Congress to retain the seat as there is every chance of the BJP and Ajsu putting up a consensus candidate.

“In 2019, BJP candidate had polled nearly 31,000 votes and the Ajsu candidate Sunita Choudhary had lost by over 30,000 votes to Congress Mamta Devi,” said a senior journalist in a local vernacular in Ramgarh, who has been covering elections in the constituency for the past two decades.

Significantly, Mamta Devi polled 44.7 per cent votes (99944) while Sunita Choudhary of the Ajsu, who is also the wife of Lok Sabha MP Chandra Prakash Choudhary polled 31.8 per cent votes (71,226) and BJP’s Rananjay Kumar had polled 14.26 per cent votes (31,874).

In 2019, the Ajsu — a longtime ally of the BJP — decided to contest the Assembly elections alone. However, earlier this month during a visit of BJP poll strategist and Union home minister Amit Shah to Ranchi, Ajsu chief Sudesh Mahato met him and assured that his party was part of the NDA.

In the four byelections (Dumka, Madhupur, Bermo and Mandar) held under the Hemant Soren-led government in the past three years, the ruling alliance had won all the bypolls comfortably.

Meanwhile, the Ramgarh district administration has started preparation at 405 polling stations which include 62 polling booths in the urban areas and 343 in the rural areas. A total of 506 EVMs and 547 VVPATs will be used.

According to the new voter list published on January 5, there are 3,34,167 voters in the constituency. Mamta Devi is the first woman MLA in Jharkhand to lose her Assembly membership.

Five members of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly lost their membership between 2015 and 2018 after their convictions in separate criminal cases.