JMM-led UPA government sent a message of unity during the filing of nomination of Shilpi Neha Tirkey of the Congress for the upcoming bypoll to the Mandar Assembly constituency scheduled on June 23.

Shilpi, 29, the daughter of former MLA Bandhu Tirkey, filed her nomination in one set at Ranchi in the presence of JMM executive president and chief minister Hemant Soren, accompanied by AICC in-charge Jharkhand, Avinash Pande and host of senior Congress leaders and cabinet ministers and almost all the women Congress MLAs.

“The government has witnessed several byelections after coming to power in December 2019. We are going to win this bypoll too by a good margin,” said Soren.

Significantly, ruling alliance has won all the bypolls held after the 2019 assembly elections so far (Madhupur, Dumka and Bermo).

Congress state president Rajesh Thakur also exuded confidence about the candidate’s victory.

“People will reply through ballot the injustice done to our leader Bandhu Tirkey by the federal agency (CBI) by making his daughter victorious by a huge margin,” said Thakur.

The by-election to the assembly segment was necessitated after its MLA Bandhu Tirkey was disqualified as a member of the Jharkhand assembly on April 8, following a judgment by a special CBI court.

The special CBI court in Jharkhand had on March 28 sentenced Tirkey, a former minister in the state government, to three years in jail in a disproportionate asset case.

Bandhu Tirkey had served as the education minister in the then Madhu Koda government of the Congress. He fought the 2019 state Assembly elections as a candidate of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (P) and later joined the Congress along with Poraiyahat MLA Pradeep Yadav after a split in the party following its merger with the BJP.

“People know the work done by my father in 2005, 2009 and 2019. Each of the villagers knows my father. That has made by task easier. However, I will try to make the people aware about the wrong policies of the BJP-led government at the Centre and the people centric policies made by our state government despite constraints during two-years of Covid pandemic,” said Shilpi, a graduate in business administration from Christ University Bangalore and a PG diploma in marketing communication from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

She has already started visiting door-to-door as part of campaigning soon after filing of nomination and can be seen chalking strategies with party supporters and her fathers.

“There are 3.5 lakh voters out of which over 40 per cent are Sarna nearly 18 percent are Muslims and around 10 percent Christians. Last time (2019) Bandhu Da had won by a margin of 23127 votes against BJP’s Deo Kumar Dhan and in 2014 had lost by over 8000 votes to BJP’s Gangotri Kujur. People sentiments are with Bandhu Da over CBI’s targeting opposition leaders at the instigation of BJP and we are confident of extending the victory margin against the BJP candidate whosoever it may be,” said a close strategists in the Bandhu Tirkey camp.

BJP is yet to announce its candidate so far.

“It will be announced by our central command,” said BJP spokesperson Pratul Singhdeo.

Sources said that Gangotri Kujur is tipped as front runner to receive the ticket.

Candidates can file nomination till June 6 and votes to be counted on June 26.