Cong, RJD to back JMM against BJP in Jharkhand

Two allies, the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), seem to have reached an agreement with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on the ...

Two allies, the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), seem to have reached an agreement with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on the crucial Jharkhand by-election for Poraiyahat Assembly seat. While the JMM will field its candidate Prashant Mandal, the two allies will back him and fight BJP’s Ajit Kumar Singh.

Neither the Congress nor the RJD will put up their candidate, announced the RJD’s MLA Saba Ahmed, Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP R.K. Anand and its state in-charge Shivlal Balmiki in a joint press conference here yesterday.

The conference was attended among others by JMM’s chief and Leader of the Opposition, Stephen Marandi. ‘‘This secular alliance will prove to be a Waterloo for the communal BJP in Jharkhand in the forthcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha polls’’, said Marandi.

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The Poraiyahat seat had fallen vacant after its MLA and the state Rural Development Minister Pradeep Yadav had won the Godda Lok Sabha seat by over 90,000 votes recently.

Poraiyahat falls in the Godda Lok Sabha constituency and in a triangular contest in the 2000 Assembly polls, Yadav had defeated JMM’s Prashant Mandal by over 18,000 votes.

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