No CM candidates in Jharkhand campaign

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Phase five today, long wait begins for May 16

Ranchi: Campaigning for the five-phase Jharkhand elections that begin on November 25 is in full swing, but the two main fronts in the poll fray have not yet named their candidates for the chief minister’s post.

While the Congress has tied up with the relatively new Jharkhand Vikas Morcha floated by Babulal Marandi for this election, the BJP has continued with its trusted NDA partner, JD(U). Both fronts have separately decided to take up the issue of the chief minister’s post after the poll results.

There is a reason for this reticence. By projecting a candidate for the post, they run the risk of triggering intra-party feuding ahead of the polls. Since the Congress and BJP together put up a large contingent of candidates — 60 and 67 respectively — for the 81-member House, they are expected to emerge as major players in deciding the state’s next chief minister.

Congress MP K Keshav Rao, in charge of electioneering in Jharkhand, has made it clear that the party is not inclined to focus on the question of who will be the next CM. “As per the mandate, the elected MLAs will elect their leader,” says Rao.

There is another dimension to the issue. As the performance of all four tribal chief ministers, two each from the BJP and the erstwhile UPA-JMM combine, that the state had had since its creation in 2000 was mired in controversy, the buzz within both fronts is that the next chief minister ought to be a non-tribal.

The two BJP chief ministers were Babulal Marandi, who quit the party after being sidelined, and Arjun Munda, while the UPA-JMM combine had Shibu Soren and Independent Madhu Koda.

Within the Congress, the non-tribal name being circulated is that of Union minister of food processing Subodh Kant Sahay, who represents Ranchi in the Lok Sabha. Marandi, who is leading the campaign for the Congress-JVM across the state, is also a strong contender for the coveted post.

The BJP looks a divided house. While party president Rajnath Singh is understood to be inclined to award the post again to Munda, a tribal leader, another central leader Arun Jaitley is learnt to be backing former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a non-tribal, for the post.