Election Commission Of India To Announce Schedule For Jharkhand Assembly Elections Today

The Election Commission will announce schedule for the Jharkhand Assembly polls on Friday evening, an official statement said. The press conference has been scheduled at 4:30 pm. The term of the 81-seat Jharkhand Assembly ends on January 5 next year. There were speculations that the poll panel would announce schedule for the Delhi Assembly elections along with that of the Jharkhand, but the EC invite only refers to poll schedule for the eastern state.

Last month, on October 23rd, the Bharatiya Janata Party got a shot in the arm as six Jharkhand MLAs joined the ruling party ahead of the Assembly polls. Those who switched sides included Sukhdeo Bhagat and Manoj Yadav of the Congress, Kunal Sarangi, Chamra Linda and JP Bhai Patel of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's (JMM) and Bhanu Pratap Shahi (Nav Jawan Sangharsh Morcha).  They were inducted into the BJP in the presence of Chief Minister Raghubar Das. While Bhagat, a former Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee president, represents Lohardaga constituency, Yadav was elected from Darkatha seat.

Sarangi had won from Baragorah constituency and Sahi is a two-time MLA from Bhavnathpur seat. Sarangi’s father Dinesh Sarangi was also a minister in the erstwhile BJP-led NDA governments of Babulal Marandi and Arjun Munda.

Former Jharkhand police chief Dinesh Kumar Pandey, who retired from service this year, and former IAS officer Suchitra Sinha also joined the party.

Welcoming the MLAs and former civil servants into the party, the chief minister said they joined the BJ P as they were influenced by the party’s ideology of ‘Sab ka saath, sab ka Vikas’.

 “All these people have joined the BJP to give a stable government in the interest of society and the state. They believe in the BJPs ideology, which is a happy message to the state, as the people of the country and the state have rejected dynastic politics,” Das said.

The BJP has often targeted the Congress and the JMM over “dynastic politics”.

BJPs Jharkhand Election co-in-charge Nand Kishore Yadav, who is a cabinet minister in Bihar, former union minister Jayant Sinha and the partys state unit president Laxman Gilua were also present at the event.

In February, 2015, six Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) MLAs had joined the BJP. Elections to the state Assembly are likely in November-December. The Raghubar Das government will be the first to complete a full term in office since the state was carved out of Bihar on November 15, 2000.