Ranchi: The election commission on Tuesday declared the dates for the bypolls on two seats of Jharkhand Assembly including Dumka (ST) and Bermo.
The voting on these seats would be held on November 3 while the counting of the votes would be held on November 10 and on the same day the results would be declared.
As per the schedule, October 16 would be the last date for the filing of nominations while candidates would be able to withdraw their names till October 19.
The Congress party would be fielding its candidate on Bermo seat while JMM would be contesting on Dumka seat. The BJP would be contesting these two seats however its candidate would also need to enjoy the support of the AJSU party.
In these bypolls the BJP has nothing to lose but much more is at the stake for the ruling Mahagathbandhan as in the assembly elections of 2019 BJP had lost both the seats as JMM had won from Dumka and Congress from Bermo.
However, at that time BJP and AJSU had contested the elections separately and Babulal Marandi who was than in the elections with his regional outfit JVM-P had also fielded its candidates. However now in the changed political scenario, AJSU is part of NDA and Babulal has merged JVM-P with BJP and is currently the legislature wing leader of the BJP.
In the assembly elections of 2019 Rajendra Prasad Singh of the Congress had won from the seat having secured 88,945 votes while Yogeshwar Mahto Batul of BJP had got 63,773 votes. Similarly in Dumka Hemant Soren had won having received a total of 81,007 votes while BJP’s Louis Marandi came second with having got 67,819 votes.
The bypolls on these two seats have been necessitated as Hemant Soren who won from Dumka and Barhet seats of Santhal Pargana resigned from Dumka and took oath as a member of the house from Barhet seat while Bermo seat fell vacant following the demise of Rajendra Singh.