Senior BJP leaders from Jharkhand currently campaigning in Assam and Bengal for the Assembly polls, including Union tribal affairs minister Arjun Munda and party’s national vice-president Raghubar Das, will have to make a hasty return to their home state in the next few days to prepare to wrest the Madhupur seat from the JMM.
The Election Commission declared on Tuesday that byelection to the Madhupur Assembly seat (which falls under Godda Lok Sabha constituency in Deoghar district) will be held on April 17 and the result will be declared on May 2. The last date for filing nominations is March 30.
After losing the 2019 Assembly election, the BJP further lost face in the Dumka and Bermo bypolls and is desperate to wrest the Madhupur Assembly seat.
“We are confident of wresting the Madhupur Assembly seat this time as we will be having the support of Ajsu (All Jharkhand Students Union). The core committee of the BJP will be announcing the party candidate in a few days. Soon after, senior party leaders who are campaigning in Bengal will be asked to shuttle between Madhupur and the neighbouring state for canvassing,” said BJP state spokesperson Pratul Sahdeo.
The BJP’s confidence stems from the 2019 results in which its voting percentage (28.34 per cent) and Ajsu’s (19.88 per cent) taken together (48.22 per cent) was higher than the JMM (38.4 per cent).
Ajsu’s Ganga Narayan Ray Sourced by The Telegraph
JMM’s Hafijul Hassan Sourced by The Telegraph
However, party insiders revealed that it would not be easy to persuade Ajsu’s probable candidate Ganga Narayan Ray to leave the field for the BJP’s possible nominee Raj Paliwar.
“Ganga Narayan Ray has already started campaigning in his circles for the election and it would be very difficult to persuade him to withdraw. He has already made his intention clear that if the BJP wants to win the seat, it should give him the ticket, making his ambitions clear,” said a party insider.
The BJP is in a sticky position as it does not want to upset former cabinet minister and state vice-president Paliwar who has also expressed his interest to contest from the Madhupur seat and has the backing of the RSS think tank.
The ruling JMM, on the other hand, is unperturbed.
“We had already made our candidate for the Madhupur seat clear in February itself by making Hafijul Hassan, son of our senior leader Haji Hussain Ansari, a cabinet minister. It is a tribute from our part to our senior leader who passed away in October due to Covid-related complications. The people of Madhupur know what Haji Sahab has done for them and also know what the current government has done in the last one year despite battling the Covid-19 pandemic. We are confident of retaining the seat and the victory margin would only increase,” said JMM national general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharjee.
The Madhupur seat fell vacant after the death of cabinet minister and JMM legislator Ansari in October last year and his son Hafijul was allocated the minority welfare department in the Hemant Soren government on February 5 this year.
