The third and final round of lS elections in the State on Thursday is set to witness clash of two former Chief Ministers--Babulal Marandi and Shibu Soren--in Dumka along with several other political veterans in the fray.
Fate of a total of 72 candidates of the four lok Sabha constituencies--Dhanbad, Dumka, Rajmahal and Godda--is to be decided by tomorrow’s polling in the State.The past electoral history favours the BJP to have a cutting edge over other parties in Santhal Pargana as well as Dhanbad as it had won three out of the four seats in 2009 general elections, with the JMM bagging the Dumka seat.
The adjoining Godda, on the other hand, is witnessing a triangular fight among sitting BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, Congress’ Furkan Ansari and JVM-P legislator Pradeep Yadav. The fourth key candidate is the former IPS officer Subodh Prasad, fighting on the AJSU ticket.
Similarly, in Dhanbad, BJP veteran PN Singh is being challenged by the recent Congress defector Chandrashekhar Dubey, contesting on a Trinamool Congress ticket. The other prominent candidates in Dhanbad are JVM legislator Samresh Singh and former chairperson of Jharkhand State Commission for Women Hemlata S Mohan. The BJP candidate is supposed to have a sizeable support base in steel town of Bokaro, besides Dhanbad.
In Rajmahal, Hemlal Murmu is contesting on a BJP ticket, who recently left the JMM to oppose the dynastic rule of Sorens in the party. He is in direct fight with the JMM nominee and son of former Congress State president Thomas Hansda, Vijay Kumar Hansda. Hansda’s entry into the JMM has alienated another JMM veteran Simon Marandi. JVM’s Anil Murmu is banking on sizeable tribal Christian voters in the constituency.
A total of 6107310 voters are to exercise their franchise at 7489 polling stations in the four litmus test for State’s biggies constituencies of which 3,14,100 are first time voters including one NRI voter. Election Commission is to keep hawk’s eye on 400 booths through webcasting using 1015 video cameras and 1954 still cameras. Around 38,000 security personnel, including CRPF, Jharkhand Jaguar, Indian Reserve Battalion, state police and home guards, have been deployed.