Chaibasa, the bone of contention for JMM and Congress in Mahagathbandhan!

Ranchi: Former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, who hails from Jharkhand, tweeted on March 11, regarding the issue plaguing the mahagatbandhan.

“BJP has given up sitting seats in Bihar and Jharkhand to have alliances. The opposition parties are not ready to compromise even on non existing seats. Good luck to them (sic).”

The situation is exactly the same in Jharkhand, where except Jharkhand Mukhti Morcha (JMM), no opposition party is in condition to make any claim. There are about fourteen Lok Sabha constituencies in Jharkhand, out of which twelve were won by BJP and the remaining two by JMM.

But now there is more than one claimant Mahagathbandhan party on many Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand.

First of all mahagathbandhan, which has mainly four parties in it—Congress, JMM, JVM and RJD is already weak in Jharkhand. As communist parties are not part of it here, Left has not been accommodated into the mahagathbandhan even for one single seat.

So when they say, that they have formed the alliance to fight against BJP, keeping communist parties out, the claim is somewhat hallow.

Practically, CPI-ML or CPI will field candidate on two seats—Koderma and Hazaribagh, as CPI-ML has been the runner up on two consecutive times in 2009 and 2014 in Koderma while CPI had won Hazaribagh seat in 2004. Now, communist parties are under one roof, so they can impact on more than three Lok Sabha constituencies of Jharkhand.

“The major problem with two main political parties of Jharkhand —JMM and JVM is, they are fighting Lok Sabha election but trying to execute everything keeping an eye on assembly polls. Without BJP being reduced to minimum parliamentary seats in Jharkhand and dethroned from center, it will not be easy for opposition to come into power in Jharkhand,” reacted a Left leader.

Amid these, CPI’s Bhuneshwar Mahto claimed that Left parties will fight on all fourteen seats.

While Arup Chatterjee, Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC)’s MLA from Nirsa, Dhanbad told eNewsroom, “We are in wait and watch, to see what decision mahagathbandhan takes on Left parties. If they will not give us any seat, MCC will also not support their candidate in Dhanbad.”

Now coming to gathbandhan’s seat sharing understanding so, Congress claims for seven seats, left four for JMM, two for JVM and one for RJD.

Initially, JMM who is looking beyond Lok Sabha polls, was ready to give ‘big brother’ status to Congress, despite being the largest party in state, was slow to react on this seat sharing. But when they found that Chaibasa seat which has five JMM MLAs was gone to Congress, then it expressed unhappiness.

This seems to be the reason behind, as why JMM’s working president Hemant Soren did not attend Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s Ranchi rally.

There is an interesting claim by RJD too. The party which has not a single MLA in Jharkhand wants to fight on two seats. There is an understanding among gathbandhan parties to offer RJD, Chatra Lok Sabha seat, but they also want to fight from Palamu.

“We consider Congress as big brother and are ready to give them six seats, but we want Chaibasa,” said a JMM leader. He wished to be anonymous, but has also claimed that the gathbandhan is intact and that they will fight together.

Congress is in a fix, Hemant Soren and JVM chief Babulal Marandi recently met in Ranchi and left a message that they are together, if Congress is not accepting their formula, they can go ahead, leaving Congress.

“In Jharkhand, Congress, which has no MP in the state, if they fight on six seats under gathbandhan, there is chance that they can win four seats, while they may win 2, if fight independently. They are getting good share, but not listening to other allies will hamper their chance only,” said Amit Raja, a political analyst.