Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to Election Commission of India (ECI) to explain that under which law the ECI removed the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) from the list of the political party and froze ‘comb’ as the election symbol of the JVM.
While issuing the notice, the court of Justice Rajesh Shankar directed the ECI to file its reply within six weeks. The court passed this order while hearing a petition filed by MLAs Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav. Both had won the 2019 Jharkhand assembly election as the JVM nominee, the party was headed by Babulal Marandi.
Tirkey, Yadav and Marandi were the three candidates who had won the last assembly election as the JVM candidate.
In February last year executed a split in the JVM and merger his party in the BJP under provisions of 10th schedule of the Constitution. Before the merger Marandi expelled both of them from the party on disciplinary ground. But it was done to remove any technical hurdle since both of them were opposed to merger of the JVM in the BJP hence after their expulsion they remained the single MLA.
On the same day Tirkey and Yadav joined the Congress. They further announced to merge the JVM in the Congress stating they represent the original JVM. Both the groups informed ECI and office of Jharkhand assembly about the merger.
While the office of Speaker of Jharkhand assembly has so far not recognized merger of any of the groups; ECI in March last year issued a notification recognising merger of JVM in the BJP. After the order the JVM ceased to exist as a separate political party in Jharkhand. During the Rajya Sabha election in Jharkhand the ECI recognised Marandi as the BJP MLA in its voter list where Tirkey and Yadav were listed as independent MLAs. ECI in its order stated that the party's election symbol of a comb would remain frozen till further orders.
Both MLAs stated that ECI under political influence passed the order to validate merger of the JVM in the BJP by Marandi.