Ranchi, October 19 (IANS). Controversy has arisen over seat sharing for the assembly elections in ‘India’ block in Jharkhand. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has termed the announcement made by state alliance leader Hemant Soren and Congress leaders in a joint press conference on Saturday as one-sided. Party’s national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha has said that “we are hurt” by the way the alliance has been announced without the consent of key RJD leaders and in their absence. The party has kept all its options open regarding this.
Manoj Jha told the media after the meeting with the leaders of RJD’s state unit in Ranchi, “When the leader of opposition in Bihar Assembly and our leader Tejashwi Yadav, the party’s national chief general secretary Abdul Bari Siddiqui, the party’s Jharkhand in-charge Jaiprakash Yadav and the state The president is present in Ranchi, so the alliance has been announced unilaterally in his absence and this has hurt us. We were not included in the alliance process even though all our big leaders are present here. ” He said all decisions are not taken like “Maggi two-minute noodles”.
The RJD leader said that our strength is very high in Jharkhand. We have identified 15 to 18 such seats in the state, where the support base is in favor of RJD and perhaps we will be able to single-handedly defeat the BJP on these seats. Last time in the alliance we fought on seven seats. Laluji has a big heart, that is why he had accepted to fight on only so many seats to defeat BJP. In that election we stood second on five seats. Perhaps no party had the second highest strike rate among the other parties in the alliance.
He has said that the number of seats that have been promised to be given to us under the alliance is neither in accordance with the historical strength of RJD nor in accordance with the contemporary circumstances. He said that we will urge the alliance partners to take decisions according to these circumstances.
It is noteworthy that in Jharkhand, ‘India’ block leader and Chief Minister Hemant Soren and Congress’s Jharkhand in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir announced the consensus among the alliance parties in a joint press conference on Saturday afternoon. He said that under the alliance, JMM and Congress will contest elections on 70 seats in the state, while the remaining 11 seats will be divided between RJD and Left parties.
–IANS
SNC/AKJ
