Failing to clinch a seat-sharing deal with the Congress for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly election, the Janata Dal (United) on Wednesday released its first list of five candidates for the poll.
The JD(U) is the third constituent of the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to go it alone in Madhya Pradesh. Earlier, the Samajwadi Party and the Aam Aadmi Party too had announced their candidates for the election.
The JD(U), Bihar’s ruling party, said it will contest in 10 to 12 seats in M.P. The election to the 230-member Assembly will be held on November 17.
The Opposition BJP in Bihar had mocked the INDIA grouping which, it said, has fallen flat ahead of the Lok Sabha poll in 2024. Significantly, it was JD(U) chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who had spearheaded the formation of the Opposition parties’ bloc INDIA, along with the Congress and other non-BJP parties to contest against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We failed to clinch a deal over seats (with the Congress). The second list of candidates too will be released soon,” said JD(U) national general secretary Afaque Ahmed Khan, while releasing the first list of five candidates. The five candidates are Chandra Pal Yadav (Pichhor seat), Ram Kunwar Raikwar (Rajnagar), Shiv Narayan Soni (Vijay Raghavgarh), Tol Singh Bhuria (Thandla) and Rameshwar Singla (Petalawad).
A senior JD(U) leader, preferring anonymity, told The Hindu that the party had demanded over a dozen seats from the Congress in Madhya Pradesh. However, when the Congress refused to spare even a single seat, the “party top leadership took decision to contest in a dozen seats there on its own”, he said. Asked about the unity of the INDIA bloc, he said, “It’s up to the principal ally Congress party too to think over it. Earlier, two allies – the SP and the AAP – too had decided to contest the poll on their own”.
It is said that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav too was miffed at the Congress for not sparing the required number of seats to it in M.P. Earlier, Mr. Yadav had categorically said that the INDIA bloc was “only at the national level”. His party, so far, has fielded 45 candidates for the M.P. Assembly election. In the 2003 Assembly poll, the SP won seven seats out of the 161 it contested in Madhya Pradesh. In 2018, it contested 52 seats and could win only one seat.
‘INDIA bloc disintegrating’
Meanwhile, the BJP leaders in Bihar said the JD(U) and other constituents fielding their own candidates in M.P. “clearly shows the disintegration of the INDIA bloc”. “In September, the Opposition INDIA constituents resolved to contest elections together as far as possible, but after a few months of its formation, the bloc seemed to have disintegrated with as many as three INDIA constituents, including the JD(U), fielding candidates against each other. This is just the beginning and with the Lok Sabha election approaching, there will be no INDIA bloc at all in the country’s political firmament,” said State BJP leader Bhim Singh.
Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) leader and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said: “The INDIA constituents can croak together like a frog but they can’t stay together”.
State BJP chief Samrat Choudhary asked, “When he (Nitish Kumar) and his party has no capability (to win elections) in Bihar, what will he do in Madhya Pradesh?”