The BJP will field former social welfare minister Louise Marandi in Dumka and Yogeshwar Mahto ‘Batul’ in Bermo for the November 3 bylections, the party said on Sunday.

Both Marandi and Mahto lost in the 2019 Assembly elections. In Dumka, chief minister Hemant Soren (JMM) defeated Marandi, while in Bermo, Congress’s Rajendra Prasad Singh decimated Mahto. The two seats fell vacant after Hemant decided to leave Dumka and retain Barhait in January, while sitting Congress MLA Rajendra Prasad Singh died in Bermo in May.

BJP’s general secretary Aditya Sahu said, “Based on the feedback from the state leadership, BJP high command has announced Louise Marandi and Yogeshwar Mahto for Dumka and Bermo seats respectively. Both are grounded to their constituency which they had last represented between 2014-19 and are sure to undo the past loss.”

Reacting to her nomination, Louise said, “I am thankful to the party leadership for showing its faith in me. People in Dumka have realised their past mistake after seeing 7 months of misrule of the present government in all sectors, be it law and order, transparency in governance or execution of schemes meant for them. An anti-JMM wave is brewing strong in Dumka.”

Yogeshwar, on the other hand, did not answer calls when The TelegraphOnline tried to reach him for comments.

BJP sources said that the party initially thought of fielding new faces in both the seats but fell back on old war horses owing to a lack of trusted faces.

“In Dumka, certain sections within the party first proposed the name of Babulal Marandi, who is currently the leader of legislative party and Dhanwar MLA. In past elections, Babulal had defeated JMM supremo Shibu Soren and is an acceptable Santhali face in this region. He, however, didn’t wish to take the risk,” claimed a party veteran.

BJP nominee for Bermo Yogeshwar Mahto 'Batul' Telegraph picture

In Bermo, the BJP had zeroed in on Yogeshwar and former Giridih MP Ravindra Kumar Pandey, who was benched in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls after the seat went to AJSU-P as part of the BJP-AJSU alliance.

“Yogeshwar was preferred over Pandey because of past records. In the Opposition, our focus now is to carefully capitalise on available limited opportunities to increase our tally in the state Assembly,” said the party insider.

Following Sunday’s announcement, the battlelines for the November 3 byelections are clearly drawn between the ruling mahagatbandhan of JMM, Congress and RJD versus the NDA after the Sudesh Mahto-led AJSU-P extended its support to the BJP.

The JMM-Congress-RJD combine has named Hemant’s younger brother Basant and Kumar Jaimangal, son of Rajendra Prasad, in Dumka and Bermo respectively. Basant will file his nominations on Monday (October 12) while Jaimangal will do so on October 14, said Congress spokesperson Alok Dubey.

BJP is yet to say when it intends to file nominations of its candidates. But sources said the party was expected to do so on October 14.

Currently, the ruling coalition has 46 MLAs in the 81-member Assembly with an effective strength of 78 after the demise of JMM minister and Madhupur MLA Haji Hussain Ansari on October 3. In the 2019 Assembly polls, JMM originally won 29 seats, Congress 17 and RJD 1. This apart, two former JVM-P MLAs—Bandhu Tirkey (Mandar) and Pradeep Yadav (Poriyahat) _ joined the Congress after the Assembly polls of December 2019, taking the total count of MLAs of the ruling dispensation to 49. The BJP on the other hand has 26 MLAs after Babulal Marandi merged his party with the saffron camp, while AJSU-P has two seats, taking the NDA’s count to 28.