The ruling BJP has named party’s ST cell from Simdega Basant Soreng as its candidate to contest Kolibera Assembly bypoll. Party’s general secretary Deepak Prakash said on Sunday evening that Soreng would file his nomination on Monday. Later Congress after snub from the JMM named Wilson Kongari as its nominee.
“The BJP has decided to file Basant Soreng as its candidate. The decision has been taken after several consultations made at different levels. He would file papers on Monday and will be accompanied by senior party leaders,” said Prakash.
The party had authorized State BJP chief Laxman Gilua, Chief Minister Raghubar Das and organizational secretary Dharmpal for taking the final call since there were as many as 11 names doing rounds for the ticket.
On the other hand the commotion in the Opposition coalition turned even louder with Congress expressing its mind to contest the bypoll on its own. It apparantly was a fall out of the one-sided announcement made by JMM executive president Hemant Soren about supporting Jharkhand Party’s candidate Menon Ekka a day before Congress’ State in-charge RPN Singh landed in Ranchi on Sunday morning.
Soon after Singh drove down to JVM supremo Babulal Marandi and went into closed door huddle with him and JVM general secretary Pradeep Yadav. Following the meeting the JVM announced that it would not field its candidate into the poll, but RPN Singh expressed his mind.
“We will be fielding Congress nominee in the by poll. Still we want the coalition to continue and talks about supporting one single candidate would take place with the JMM.
The party had made its intentions very clear from the very beginning,” said Singh.
Later he along with Pradesh Congress Committee chief and former Jharkhand president Pradeep Balmuchu called on Hemant Soren at his residence visibly to control the damage feared to happen to the ‘grand alliance’ of the Opposition parties which are aspiring to come together against the BJP in the State ahead of the upcoming elections.
So far the efforts by the Congress leaders have failed in keeping the Opposition bloc united. State Congress president Ajoy Kumar coming out of the meeting announced that the party would field Wilson Kongari from the seat and that he would be filing his papers on the last day on Monday.
Hemant Soren made it clear that his party would stick to its decision to support Menon Ekka this time but the larger issue of grand alliance is intact as far as 2019 Assembly polls are concerned.