RANCHI: After much dilly-dallying, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came out with its first list of candidates for the Jharkhand Assembly elections on Sunday.The party released a list of 52 candidates, handing tickets to almost all the turncoats waho switched over to the saffron camp recently. The list comprises a mix of sitting legislators, fresh faces, Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) members, as well as Other Backward Caste (OBC) candidates, the BJP’s working president JP Nadda said while calling out the names in New Delhi on Sunday.
Of the prominent names in the list are Chief Minister Raghubar Das from Jamshedpur East, the party’s state unit BJ president Laxman Gilua from Chakradharpur seat, which is reserved for an ST candidate and Urban Development Minister CP Singh from Ranchi. Among the other sitting ministers in fray are Louis Marandi from Dumka and Neera Yadav from Koderma.
The turncoats who have been accommodated in the list include Kunal Shadangi from Bahragora, Bhanu Pratap Shahi from Bhavnathpur, JP Patel from Mandu, Shashi Bhushan Mehta from Panki, Mistri Soren from Maheshpur, Janardan Paswan from Chatra and Manoj Yadav from Barhi. The list also features MLAs who defected from Babulal Marandi’s JVM-P after the 2014 polls.
Among the fresh faces are Mirsti Soren, Paritosh Soren from Shikaripara, Raginin Singh from Jharia, Indrajeet Mahto from Sindri, Devendra Kumar from Jarmundi and Pushpa Devi from Chattarpur, among others.