JMM announces Mahua Maji as it candidate for upcoming Jharkhand RS election

|HT|

The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on Monday announced Mahua Maji as its candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha election, turning down a request from ally Congress to allocate it a seat in the Upper House of Parliament. Chief minister Hemant Soren said the decision on Maji's name was taken by his father and JMM patriarch Shibu Soren. “We discussed names and finally Guruji (Shibu Soren) decided upon the name of Mahua Maji to be our Rajya Sabha nominee,” Soren told reporters.

Maji is set to sail through the election as the JMM has 30 members in the Assembly, three more than 27 preference votes required to win the seat. The Jharkhand CM paid a visit to Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi in the national capital and is said to have discussed issues regarding the Rajya Sabha election made a visit to the national capital when he met

The Congress, which is the junior partner in the Hemant Soren government with 17 legislators, had requested the JMM to allocate a seat to it. The grand old party is yet to make any announcement on whether it would file its candidate or not.

The second seat for the Upper House on offer from Jharkhand is set to go to the BJP, which has fielded its state general secretary Aditya Sahu.

A day ago, the Congress announced a list of its nominees for the upcoming election, fielding Rajeev Shukla and Ranjeet Rajan from Chhattisgarh, Ajay Maken from Haryana and Jairam Ramesh from Karnataka. Soon after, discontentment came to the fore within the grand old party.

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