2024-03-10 17:41:06
Ranchi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made state unit general secretary Pradeep Verma its candidate for the elections to be held on two Rajya Sabha seats in Jharkhand. Party spokesperson Pratul Shahdev made this announcement on Saturday. He told that 52-year-old Verma will file his nomination papers on March 11. Verma, who has obtained a PhD degree, has been associated with BJP since 1992 and has served on many posts in the party including State Vice President.
Nomination on March 11
An official said that biennial elections for two Rajya Sabha seats of Jharkhand will be held on March 21. The tenure of two current members of Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand, Sameer Oraon of BJP and Dheeraj Prasad Sahu of Congress, is ending on May 3, due to which it has become necessary to hold elections. According to the current strength of the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, the ruling alliance led by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is likely to get one seat and the opposition one seat in the Rajya Sabha elections.
Jharkhand: BJP names Pradeep Verma as Rajya Sabha candidate, name of Sarfaraz Ahmed fixed from JMM
alliance will also announce
The ruling JMM-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alliance is likely to announce its candidate on Sunday. Jharkhand Congress President Rajesh Thakur said that the MLAs of the alliance partners are meeting on Sunday and probably the name will be announced after the meeting. JMM spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya said that our candidate will be 100 percent Jharkhandi, who will file his nomination on March 11.
Congress with 19 MLAs did not get a single seat in Bihar Legislative Council, share divided between RJD and ML.
Pradeep Verma is from UP
He claimed that BJP’s Rajya Sabha candidate is from Uttar Pradesh. Ruling allies Congress and JMM have decided to field joint candidates in the elections. According to sources in the ruling coalition, an agreement has been reached to make JMM’s former MLA Sarfaraz Ahmed from Gandey a candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat. Ahmed had resigned from the Jharkhand Assembly on December 31 last year. He had also purchased nomination papers on Thursday. The election officer said that the process of filing nomination papers started on March 4 and its last date is March 11. The last date for withdrawal of names is March 14.
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March 21 poll
The official said that if necessary, voting will be held in the Jharkhand Assembly complex on March 21 from 9 am to 4 pm and counting of votes will be done at 5 pm on the same day. There are total six Rajya Sabha seats from Jharkhand. The ruling alliance has 47 MLAs in the state assembly, including 29 from JMM, 17 from Congress and one from RJD. BJP has 26 MLAs and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party has three MLAs. Apart from two independent MLAs, there is one MLA each from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). There is also a nominated member.