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All Jharkhand Students Union party leader joins BJP
All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party leader Ganga Narayan Singh on Monday joined the BJP which, in all likelihood, will field him from Madhupur assembly constituency to take on JMM-Congress-RJD grand alliance candidate in the by-poll scheduled on April 17
All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party leader Ganga Narayan Singh on Monday joined the BJP which, in all likelihood, will field him from Madhupur assembly constituency to take on JMM-Congress-RJD grand alliance candidate in the by-poll scheduled on April 17.
Speaking to media soon after joining BJP, Singh said, “I joined BJP to serve poor and downtrodden. Since my childhood, I admired Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now I am deeply impressed by prime minister Narendra Modi.”
The election for this assembly seat is necessitated after the death of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s (JMM) sitting legislator and minister Haji Hussain Ansari in October last year.
Singh, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 assembly election on AJSU party ticket from Madhupur, embraced the saffron fold along with his supporters in presence of BJP’s leader of opposition Babulal Marandi and other state leaders at the party headquarters.
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The development is closely linked to the ensuing Madhupur by-election, nomination for which is to begin from March 23.
In order to select its candidate, BJP’s state election committee, on March 20, had discussed on poll prospects of four probable candidates, including former minister Raj Paliwal and Singh who has also applied for the party ticket. According to sources, the BJP would announce its candidate name this week.
Former minister Raj Paliwal had twice represented Madhupur assembly constituency in 2005 and 2014. He lost the election in 2019 at the hands of JMM’s Haji Hussain Ansari. However, AJSU party’s candidate Singh stood third in the 2019 election.
With Singh’s joining the party, BJP insiders said that it has now become almost clear that the party would drop Raj Paliwal and choose Singh as its candidate for the by-poll.
They said that the BJP wanted to keep NDA votes intact. “AJSU party, which is part of the NDA, may not field its candidate this time. If this happens, BJP candidate would get the party’s traditional votes and others as well,” the insiders said.
On the other hand, JMM-Congress-RJD grand alliance is all set to field late Ansari’s son Hafizul Ansari, now a minister in the state, as its candidate.
The grand alliance has taken a strategic move by elevating Hafizul Ansari as minister to give a message to the people of Madhupur assembly constituency that they would be voting to a person who is already a minister.
Commenting on the grand alliance move, Marandi said, “Out of fear of losing the election, the JMM had made Ansari’s son as minister even before the poll. It, however, has forgotten what happened in Tamar when the then chief minister Shibu Soren lost the election. The same will happen in Madhupur.”
