A minister in the Hemant Soren cabinet, Hafizul Hassan filed his nomination as the JMM candidate for the Madhupur assembly seat , a byelection for which is scheduled to be held next month, in the presence of the chief minister and his ministerial colleagues on Thursday.

In the run up to his nomination, filed in the afternoon, Hemant addressed a mega rally at Pathalchapti ground in the Madhupur constituency asking voters to elect Hafizul and pay a fitting tribute to his father and former MLA Haji Hussain Ansari.

At the rally, attended by close to 1,000 people, Hemant turned emotional. "A son of the soil is fighting this election to continue the tradition to serve this constituency. Late Haji Saab represented this seat many times and lived a simple life. He always dreamt about ways to bring development to this constituency. Electing Hafizul will be a fitting tribute to him. It will also strengthen your own government,” he said.

Hafizul was inducted into the cabinet early this year before the announcement of the bypoll as the JMM’s strategy of staking claim to the seat and make him the joint candidate of the grand alliance comprising Congress and RJD.

State agriculture minister Badal Patralekh, Mahagama MLA Deepika Pandey Singh, in addition to Hafizul and Hemant, were among the battery of leaders of the grand alliance who were present at the rally.

Critising the BJP, Hemant said, “They are wasting time by fighting this election as in 2019, people of this constituency chose JMM. I am sure that you will again elect your leader, who is young and a minister in your government.”

The byelection is to be held on April 17. Results will be declared on May 2. After coming to power in 2019, this will be third bypoll for the incumbent JMM-Congress-RJD grand alliance in Jharkhand. Last year, JMM retained Dumka while Congress won back Bermo during the two bypolls held around May.

The Madhupur bypoll was necessitated after the demise of Haji Hussain in October last year owing to post Covid complications. Haji Hussain was minister of minority affairs in the Hemant cabinet.

BJP announces turncoat as candidate

BJP on Thursday announced turncoat Ganga Narayan Singh as its candidate for Madhupur bypoll. Few days back, he joined the party after leaving AJSU-P. During 2019 elections, he finished on the third spot contesting on AJSU-P ticket but won BJP’s eyeballs for singlehanded bagging close to 45000 votes, which dented chances of the saffron camp. Gradually, it made him join BJP to contest Madhupur this time.