INDIA bloc, NDA candidates file nominations for Rajya Sabha polls

Ranchi: Candidates of JMM, a partner of the ruling INDIA bloc in Jharkhand, and BJP of the NDA camp filed their respective nominations on Monday before the returning officer at the state assembly for the ensuing biennial Rajya Sabha election. The candidates were flanked by their senior party leaders as they filed their nomination papers.
While the INDIA bloc comprising JMM, Congress and RJD fielded 71-year-old Sarfaraz Ahmad, who gave up his assembly membership as Gandey MLA, the opposition alliance propped up 52-year-old Pradeep Verma, the state general secretary of BJP.
With no third person in the poll fray by the end of the nomination window on Monday, both the ruling and opposition camps are set to win their respective seats, given the number of their MLAs in the 81-member assembly which currently has an effective strength of 80.
Talking to TOI, returning officer Sayed Jawed Haider confirmed that only two candidates filed their nomination papers. “The NDA candidate filed his nomination in three sets and the India bloc candidate in two sets. The scrutiny will be conducted on Tuesday and the withdrawal of candidature is fixed on March 14 (Wednesday). Both the candidates are set to be announced winners without any opponents on that day,” he said.
The two Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant this month after the terms of Dhiraj Sahu (Congress) and Sameer Oraon (BJP) ended.
While BJP will be retaining its seat, Congress had to give the seat to its ally, JMM, this time, despite internal rumblings among a section of the state unit of the grand old party.
Ahmad’s nomination is seen as a reward for having pre-maturely sacrificed his assembly membership in December last year to save the incumbent coalition govt in the wake of ED probes against former chief minister Hemant Soren.
The coalition had then planned to field Hemant’s wife, Kalpana from the Gandey assembly constituency.
However, as the remaining tenure of the assembly is less than a year, the bypoll in Gandey couldn’t take place and with Hemant’s arrest in January, the coalition govt had to announce Champai Soren as Hemant’s successor to keep the govt afloat.
Ahmad was accompanied by chief minister Champai, Congress’s leader of the legislative party, Alamgir Alam and CPI (ML) MLA Vinod Singh during the nomination process. On the other hand, state BJP president Babulal Marandi, leader of opposition Amar Bauri and NCP MLA Kamlesh Singh were present during Verma’s nomination.
After filing his papers, Verma said, “I feel honoured that the party has considered me fit for the Upper House. I will be to take up issues concerning Jharkhand and its people once elected to the Rajya Sabha.”
JMM’s central spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharjee added, “BJP tried to resort to horse-trading like it did in Himachal Pradesh recently by preparing to field another candidate but India bloc’s unity in Jharkhand forced it to backtrack. We had information that it made a businessman (Harihar Mahapatra) buy the nomination paper but could muster enough courage to play dirty tricks here this time.”