Ranchi: Now it’s clear that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has not only to contest with opposition candidate at Jamshedpur East assembly constituency, but also his own party leader and former minister – Saryu Roy in the Jharkhand assembly polls.
On Monday, November 18, both Raghubar Das and Saryu Roy, a former cabinet minister in Das’ cabinet filed their candidatures from Jamshedpur East seat.
Three times MLA, Roy, was BJP legislator from Jamshedpur West. However, he was denied party ticket in this assembly polls. Roy has been constantly raising corruption and other issues of Raghubar government. Now, the rebel BJP leader will contest against Jharkhand CM on Jamshedpur East seat, where Das is a sitting MLA. Roy will also be contesting from Jamshedpur West.
Before filing his papers, Roy has resigned both from minister-ship as well as legislator’s position. However, so far, neither has he left BJP nor has the party taken any action against him.
Before filing his nominations, former Jamshedpur West MLA addressed a gathering and said, “I started my political career from JP Andolan. Party says there should be a movement against corruption, PM also says that there will be zero tolerance against corruption, but when I say that there should be a movement against corruption, then my statement goes against the government.”
Roy further said, “Whatever issues I have raised, only 5 per cent has been reported by the media, 95 per cent resides in the files only. I believe all those information should be made public.”
“There is an environment of fear in Jamshedpur. And there is pollution too. These issues should not be ignored. But saying so, my ticket has been put on hold. So the person who made it all this happen, I decided to stand against him. I will file nominations from both Jamshedpur East and West Assembly segments as an independent candidate,” he added.
A good number of supporters followed Roy as he went to file his nominations, but this time they were all sporting the Tri-Colour, instead of BJP’s saffron flag.
Post nominations, Roy was more harsh and claimed that he would get the fourth chief minister of Jharkhand jailed. Roy has been credited with exposing scams which sent former chief ministers—Lalu Prasad Yadav, Jagganath Mishra and Madhu Koda, behind the bars.
However, Raghubar Das is yet to react to Roy contesting elections against him.
But this is not the only challenge that the Jharkhand CM has to face, Congress candidate Gourav Vallabh too, looks all set to give the CM a tough fight. Gourav, a professor of XLRI, Jamshedpur is also Congress’ national spokesperson.
Gourav is the joint candidate from gathbandhan. The grand old party has an alliance with Jharkhand Mukhti Morcha (JMM) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for the Jharkhand elections.
