Cong, JMM to contest 70 of 81 J'khand Assembly seats: Soren

RJD DISSATISFIED WITH ‘UNILATERAL DECISION'

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INDIA bloc will contest the upcoming Jharkhand Assembly polls together, Chief Minister Hemant Soren announced on Saturday. The Congress and the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) will field candidates in 70 of the 81 Assembly segments, he said.

“We can't go into the details of the seat-sharing right now. Our alliance partner is not here right now. When they are here, we will finalise the number of seats and other details,” Soren told reporters. He added that seat-sharing talks are on with other alliance partners - RJD and Left parties - for the remaining 11 segments. Jharkhand will have two-phase voting - on November 13 and 20. Counting of votes will be taken up on November 23.

Soren said the JMM-led alliance was confident of retaining power in the state on the back of its development work. The NDA on Friday announced its seat-sharing formula among its partners. The BJP will contest 68 seats, AJSU Party 10, JD(U) 2 and LJP (Ram Vilas) 1.

Filing of nomination papers for 43 Assembly constituencies of Jharkhand, which are going to polls on November 13 in the first phase, began on Friday and will continue till October 25.

In 2019, the JMM-led alliance won 47 seats in the Jharkhand Assembly, including 30 of JMM and 16 of the Congress. The BJP had secured 25 seats, JVM-P 3, AJSU Party 2, CPI-ML 1, NCP-1 and independents 2. Currently, the strength of the Assembly stands at 74, with the JMMled ruling alliance having 44 members.