In high voltage campaigns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will address rallies tomorrow in Jamshedpur, part of Kolhan region which claims to be game changer in the ongoing assembly elections.
Thirteen seats under Kolhan, besides seven seats of Tamar, Torpa, Khunti, Mandar, Sisai, Simdega and Kolebira go to poll on December 2.
Besides, Modi will also be holding another rally in Ranchi which goes to poll in the third phase on December 9. It will be the Prime Minister’s third visit to poll-bound Jharkhand since the electioneering for the Assembly polls picked up.
Interestingly, Sonia Gandhi will be replying to Modi’s jibes at 1.30 pm after Modi leaves Jharkhand. Rahul Gandhi on Friday addressed two rallies in Jagannathpur and Chaibasa.
It is not without reason that the all the parties, including incumbent JMM- Congress and also the BJP have put their maximum weight in Kolhan where 20 seats are on the stake and whosoever takes a lead will form the government in Ranchi.
In 2009, the BJP had won 7 out of the 13 seats in Kolhan and is desperately trying to better its performance to come back in power.
Taking lead over the Congress and JMM campaign, Modi had earlier held a rally in Chaibasa on November 25 just before leaving for Nepal to attend the SAARC summit. Other senior central leaders, including Amit Shah and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Arjun Munda have campaigned extensively in the region, home to the country’s vast natural resources and also epicenter of corruption.
BJP’s chief ministerial hopefuls Arjun Munda and Raghubar Das are also in the fray from the region, Jamshedpur (east) and Kharsawan respectively.
Modi, during his earlier rally in Chaibasa had attacked JMM’s Shibu Soren and his chief minister son Hemant for cheating tribals. He had also reached out to the state's tribal population, saying, "Wherever there is tribal population, BJP is forming government."
The JMM, which had 5 out of 20 seats in 2009, has played the tribal card aggressively to keep the tribals from Kolhan, having a long history of tribal movement, to its side.
Senior BJP leader Ajay Maroo said the round II is crucial for the BJP as the party had won 10 seats in 2009 and bagged the rest of the seats in the past some time or the other. “So, we are trying hard to improve our tally,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi had chosen Patamda, a naxal hotspot under Ghatshila constituency reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC), instead of Ghatshila, where former state unit president Pradeep Balmuchu’s daughter Cinderella is seeking election.
Congress state president Sukhdeo Bhagat, whose rivalry with Balmuchu is an open secret, asserted that Soniaji’s programme in Ghatshila constituency had not been fixed under any design.
“She had earlier addressed rallies in ST reserved and general constituencies. So this time we wanted to focus in SC reserved constituency. Also, Rahul Gandhi addressed rallies today in ST reserved segments,” he pointed out.
Congress spokesman lal Kishore Nath Shahdeo said that the second phase was crucial for the Congress as there are 16 out of 20 constituencies reserved for adivasis. The Congress had won only one seat in 2009 in the region.