The Election Commission (EC) on Friday announced the schedule for five-phased Jharkhand Assembly elections between November 30 and December 20, with the counting to be held on December 23.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora said the polls will be held in the Naxalism-affected State on November 30, December 7, 12, 16 and 20. As many as 19 districts are sensitive and 13 worst-affected by Left-wing extremism in the State. The term of the Jharkhand Assembly ends on January 5 next year.
The elections to the 81-seat Jharkhand Assembly would test the popularity of Chief Minister Raghubhar Das and the BJP, which would be pitted against the Opposition grand alliance spearheaded by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) that hopes to give a tough fight to Das who is claiming to repeat BJP’s win in the polls with a “record 65 seats”.
Das is the first non-tribal to become Jharkhand’s Chief Minister. Tribals, though, make the single-biggest chunk of voters in the State with around 26 per cent total population, as per the 2011 census.
As in the case of Maharashtra and Haryana, where prior to elections several Opposition MPs and MLAs crossed over to the BJP creating a buzz for the party, Jharkhand also witnessed the saffron party roping in six Opposition MLAs — two each from the Congress and the JMM, one from the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) and one independent — in October.
The JMM-headed Opposition is pinning its hopes on the anti-incumbency factors working at the local level along with price-rise and unemployment giving it a leg-up in the poll. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2014 collected 43 seats and jacked it up further by pulling in 6 JVP (P) MLAs in 2015 to sit pretty with a dominant majority.
State Congress president Rameshwar Oraon claimed defections will not have any impact and the BJP will be crushed in Jharkhand. “They got much less than what they were expecting in Haryana and Maharashtra. The half-baked exercise — to oust them from power — will now be completed in Jharkhand,” Oraon said.
“We will soon announce the formation of grand alliance comprising at least four political parties, the JMM, the Congress, the JVM(P) and the RJD,” JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya said, adding, “We are working to finalise the seat-sharing formula.”
The BJP, which currently rules the State in an alliance with the All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU), hopes for better results than it recorded in Maharashtra and Haryana where results were below par its expectations.
BJP Rajya Sabha member and election-in-charge of Jharkhand Om Mathur tweeted that his party and cadre had geared up for the Assembly polls a year ahead and already worked out Assembly-segment wise poll preparations. He claimed that the BP would lift the crown again with the party going past the record 65 seats in the State. Jharkhand Assembly elections will be the third full State polls since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the BJP to a massive win in Lok Sabha elections in April-May.
The CEC said, “Voting for 13 constituencies will be held in the first phase on November 30, followed by the second phase in 20 constituencies on December 7. Seventeen seats will vote on December 12 in the third phase, 15 constituencies on December 16, and the remaining 16 seats on December 20 in the final phase.” There are 2.26 crore electorate in the State. There are 2.19 lakh senior citizens above 80 years of age and 2.16 lakh persons with disabilities.
