RANCHI: For the first time in Hazaribagh Lok Sabha seat, two candidates of backward caste (OBC) have locked horns against each other making the contest interesting besides making it unpredictable also.
Hazaribagh LS seat, a BJP stronghold with former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and his son Jayant Sinha winning the seat on BJP ticket for the last three terms, has become difficult for the party this time as the contest is primarily between the two backward (OBC) candidates — Hazaribagh (Sadar) MLA Manish Jaiswal of BJP and Mandu MLA Jai Prakash Bhai Patel of Congress party.
Congress had won the seat last time in 1984 when Damodar Pandey had defeated CPI candidate Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta. In 2004, Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta had defeated Yashwant Sinha by more than 1.5 lakh votes. Since 2009, Hazaribagh has been represented by the BJP and it is considered a stronghold of the saffron party. In 2009, Yashwant won the seat and his son Jayant Sinha won it twice in 2014 and 2019. In 2019, the winning margin was huge as Jayant Sinha defeated Congress candidate Gopal Prasad Sahu by 4, 79,548 votes by securing 7, and 28,798 votes with 67.42% vote share.
Interestingly, both are sitting BJP MLAs and are contesting Lok Sabhs polls for the first time; Patel, however, shifted to Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
Manish Jaiswal has been elected MLA for two consecutive terms, while Jai Prakash Bhai Patel was elected thrice. Another similarity between the two is that both of them carried forward the political legacy of their fathers – Brajkishore Jaiswal and Teklal Mahto respectively.
According to locals who have been putting a tab on political pulse of the constituency, believe that for the first time the both the candidates have equal chances of winning the seat.
“With Congress candidate Jai Prakash Bhai Patel’s brother in law Shivlal Mahto joining the BJP, the contest has become interesting making it more difficult for the Congress to sail through easily. In addition to that, ‘Kayastha’ community has openly said that they will not supporters the BJP candidate as Jayant Sinha, a Kayasth, was denied ticket from Hazaribagh,” said a local pharmacist Sushant Ranjan. JMM workers on the other hand, are not very keen to support the Congress candidate as they do not trust Jai Prakash Bhai Patel as he has a track record of changing sides ahead of the every elections, he added.
Another local, a teacher by profession, believes that whoever wins the election, will be winning the seat by a narrow margin as both the candidates lack public appearance. “BJP candidate is as strong in his Assembly constituency as the Congress candidate, but beyond that they lack interaction with the voters,” said a teacher.