Congress to announce names for Jharkhand Lok Sabha seats after Holi

Ranchi: The Congress will announce names of its candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in Jharkhand after the festival of Holi, a senior party leader said on Thursday.

He said allies of the opposition bloc I.N.D.I.A. will announce their candidates separately.

"The names of the party candidates for Jharkhand Lok Sabha seats will be announced after Holi, either on March 27 or March 28," Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Alamgir Alam told PTI over the phone from New Delhi.

The announcement will be made from the Congress headquarters in the national capital, he said.

Leaders of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc in Jharkhand have claimed that a seat-sharing agreement has been finalised for all the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state.

Alam, after returning from Delhi on Thursday evening, told reporters at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Airport that four seats out of seven in Congress' quota have been finalised during the party’s screening committee meeting on Wednesday.

"We have finalised four seats—Khunti, Lohardaga, Ranchi and Hazaribag— during the screening committee meeting. A decision could not be taken on the remaining three seats. Now, they would be finalised after the festival of Holi," he said.

Over seat-sharing, he said that the agreement between Congress and JMM has already been done. "As far as RJD is concerned, it is to be done from Bihar. I think it will be decided in a day or two," he said.

As per the seat-sharing pact, the Congress would contest seven seats, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) will fight in five constituencies, while the RJD and CPI (ML) would field candidates in the remaining two seats, sources in the INDIA bloc said.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP secured 11 seats, while the AJSU Party, Congress, and JMM won one seat each in the state.

The sole Congress MP from the Singhbhum segment, Geeta Kora, recently joined the BJP which has already given her a ticket for the seat.