Campaigning for Madhupur bypoll, which is scheduled on April 17, drew to a close Thursday. Eight candidates are in the fray from the seat where the bypoll was necessitated following the death of Minister Haji Mohammad Hussain Ansari due to COVID-19 last year.
The constituency has 322, 090 electors; the results will be out on May 2.
Banking on Ansari’s popularity, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has fielded his son, Hafijul Hasan. The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the other hand, is counting on All Jharkhand Students’ Union turncoat Ganga Narayan Singh, who joined the BJP before March 30.
BJP did not give ticket to its former MLA, Raj Paliwar, who had lost to Haji Ansari in the 2019 assembly elections by 13,000 votes. Ganga Narayan Singh, then in AJSU, had got third highest 45,620 votes. The other six candidates are independent.
Interestingly, AJSU, seen as a BJP ally, has not fielded any candidate in Madhupur.
BJP’s Babulal Marandi, Godda MP Nishikant Dubey and BJP state president Deepak Prakash among others campaigned for the candidate, Ganga Narayan Singh, while various leaders of the ruling Congress-JMM alliance, including Congress minister Badal Patralekh and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and RJD campaigned for Hafijul Hassan.
The Left parties in Jharkhand — CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) and Marxist Coordination Committee — have announced their support to the JMM-UPA candidate. In the 2019 Assembly polls, BJP, AJSU, JMM garnered 28.34 per cent, 19.88 per cent, and 38.4 per cent vote share, respectively.
