Jharkhand Assembly Elections 2024 | BJP 'luring' candidates with Rs 5 crore offer to fight against Hemant Soren, claims JMM leader

A leader of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has claimed that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is offering Rs 5 crore within the party to "lure" any candidate to contest the assembly elections against Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

JMM leader Manoj Pandey told news agency ANI on Sunday that the saffron party is not able to find any candidate in Barhait Assembly seat (CM Hemant Soren's constituency).

"They are searching, yet not able to find the right candidate. We received information that now they have announced a package of Rs 5 crores within the party to lure any candidate. Now they are making attempts to call a candidate by offering money. Who would want to be politically martyred?" he said.

When asked why the party would resort to such a move, Pandey said that BJP knows that it won't able to cross 100-150 votes in the constituency, and that is why no candidate wants to fight the elections against CM Soren.

"If a BJP candidate ends up getting only 250 votes, how insulting would that be. That is why I think they might end up not fielding any candidate from the seat or might somebody might end up filing nominations in greed of money," he added.

CM Soren filed his nomination from the Barhait constituency on Thursday, while his MLA wife Kalpana Soren submitted the documents for the Gandey assembly seat.

Barhait falls under Santhal Paragana region, which is considered to be a stronghold of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

In the 2019 assembly polls, Soren contested two assembly seats—Barhait and Dumka—in Santhal region and won both the seats.

He won the Barhait seat by defeating BJP’s Simon Malto by 25,740 votes, and Dumka by 13,188 votes by beating saffron party’s Lois Marandi. Later, he vacated the Dumka seat.

Elections to the 81-member assembly are scheduled to be held in two phases on November 13 and 20, while results will be announced on November 20.

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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