Jharkhand polls: Rameshwar Oraon, Ajoy Kumar in Congress’ first list of 21 candidates

The Congress on Monday (October 21) night released its first list of 21 candidates for the Jharkhand Assembly polls, fielding finance minister Rameshwar Oraon from the Lohardaga seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

Most incumbent MLAs, including Oraon, Irfan Ansari Badal Patralekh, Banna Gupta, Jaleshwar Mahato and Deepika Pandey Singh have been re-nominated.

Key battles

Former Jamshedpur MP and the party’s in-charge for Tripura, Odisha and Nagaland Ajoy Kumar has been fielded from the Jamshedpur East constituency, a stronghold of former BJP veteran Saryu Roy. The former police officer, who has been a Lok Sabha MP from Jamshedpur in the past, is contesting the Assembly polls this time.

Also read: Jharkhand polls: Babulal Marandi, Champai Soren in BJP's 1st list of 66 candidates

The BJP has fielded Purnima Das Sahu, daughter-in-law of Odisha governor and former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das from the Jamshedpur East seat. Raghubar Das was the BJP's MLA from Jamshedpur East for five consecutive terms from 1995 to 2014. In the 2019 Jharkhand polls, Das lost the Jamshedpur East seat to Saryu Roy, who had contested the election as an independent candidate after quitting the BJP. Jai Prakash Patel, who had quit the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, has been fielded from his traditional seat of Mandu. Patel had contested the Lok Sabha polls on a Congress ticket from Hazaribagh, but was defeated by BJP's Manish Jaiswal.

Oraon, also a former police officer, is a former Jharkhand Congress chief.

Among others, Shipli Neha Tirkey has been fielded from the Mandar (ST) constituency. She is the incumbent MLA from the seat. Her father, Bandhu Tirkey, is the chairman of the Congress's manifesto committee for the Jharkhand polls.

Names decided in CEC meeting

Earlier, the top Congress leadership, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, along with several senior leaders, deliberated on the candidates' names at a meeting of the party's Central Election Committee.

Also read: Jharkhand Assembly polls 2024: 5 key issues dominating the election

The Congress is in an alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in Jharkhand and currently shares power in the eastern state.

The Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and November 20, and the counting of votes will be taken up on November 23.