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BJP candidate seeking re-election from Jamshedpur
The BJP candidate for the Jamshedpur seat, Abha Mahato, seeking re-election is hopeful of striking a hattrick and establishing a record.
BJP candidate for the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seat Abha Mahato, seeking re-election from the prestigious constituency, is hopeful of striking a hattrick this time and thus establish a record, no previous winner from the steel city has accomplished so far though her rival candidates are sceptical.
Abha, the wife of tribal leader and former MP Shailendro Mahato, is involved in a straight fight with JMM's Sunil Mahato.
While BJP and JMM are the main contenders, a total of 16 candidates including six independents are in the fray. Besides BJP, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is the other national party which has fielded Baijnath Sharma.
Abha first created history in 1998 when she became the first woman candidate of a national political party to win from Jamshedpur parliamentary constituency by defeating prominent corporate figure Russy Mody by over 96,000 votes.
She went on to retain the seat when the country faced a mid-term poll in 1999, this time defeating the Congress candidate Ghansyam Mahato by over 1.20 lakh votes.
Claiming that she was only concerned about increasing the margin, Abha said "my husband won the LS poll in 1989 and 1991 on JMM ticket in a row but failed in his third bid in 1996 on JMM ticket again, as small screen actor Nitish Bharadwaj, who portrayed the role of Krishna in the telly in Ramayana serial, pushed him to the third spot behind former Jharkhand Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari, who contested on Janata Dal ticket".
The opposition camp was of the view that this time it would not be cakewalk for Abha as majority of voters are not at all happy with the performance of BJP candidate during her two terms.
Moreover, JMM's alliance with Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress would definitely pose a stiff challenge to Abha as the only agenda of the JMM and allies is to oust the "saffron forces" at the Centre, the opposition leaders said.
Both Union Minister Yashwant Singh and BJP president Venkaiah Naidu have addressed meeting in favour of Abha, who is optimistic of her victory in the "India shining wave".
BJP, which was positioned third in the 1989 poll, registered an upswing in the polling percentage in its favour since 1989.
Having polled 22.96 per cent votes against Shailendra Mahato's 27.11 per cent, the polling percentage in favour of BJP had been going up in the subsquent polls here since 1989.
While the saffron party polled 29.96 per cent in 1991, it recorded 33.37 per cent in 1996, 41.50 per cent in 1998 and 45.4 per cent in 1999.
Mahato, who lost the hustings in 1996 mainly due to the JMM MP bribery case, joined BJP in the mid-1990.
