*Representational Picture

Mahagathbandhan is in deep water in the land where the Adani power plant is coming. However, the top opposition party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren has already tied hands with the Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

The JMM and the Congress have joined hands on the ground that the latter will accept Soren as the candidate for the post of the chief minister in Jharkhand. The number of seats to be shared by the two parties in the Lok Sabha in April-May and Assembly elections in November-December is not known.

However, other opposition parties such as the RJD and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha are far away from any tie up. In fact, JVM and the Congress are .at loggerheads over one Lok Sabha seat-Godda where BJP MP Nishikant Dubey stands strong.

In the opposition camp, JVM senior leader and party MLA from Poreyahat, Pradeep Yadav and Jamtara MLA, Irfan Ansari have pitched their claims for the seat. JVM is out to field Yadav from Godda, while Furkan Ansari, father of Irfan, is said to be Congress candidate from Godda.

Notably, both Yadav and Furkan have represented the seat earlier. Now, Yadav and Irfan Ansari (son of Furkan) have their own reasons behind their claim for Godda.

“As per the seat-sharing formula discussed with senior leaders of Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in New Delhi, Godda seat has been allotted to Congress.It has traditionally been a Congress bastion, but in last two general elections BJP has managed to win the seats due to their polarization politics,” says Ansari.

Ansari said, “Apart from being the traditional bastion of Congress the seat has a big chunk of minority voters who are traditionally Congress voters.”Alongside, Yadav has his own logic.

"We will give up our stand. The ball is in the court of senior Congress and JMM leaders. Either they give Godda seat to JVM, or JVM will contest the seat independently.” Yadav said,

 Yadav has been representing Poreyahat, a part of Godda seat since 2005 as MLA. "I know the mood of Godda", Yadav who is considered close to ex-CM Babulal Marandi said.

Congress ex-MP Subodh Kant Sahay has met Marandi to break Godda deadlock, pacifying Marandi to leave Godda for Congress. However, Marandi and Yadav appear determined not to mend ways. As a result, they failed to yield any result.

In 2002, Godda by-poll election, Yadav, the then BJP candidate had won the seat defeating Furkan. Two years later in 2004, Furkan wrested the seat from Yadav. However, for the last two terms, BJP’s Nishikant Dubey has been representing the MP seat.

Godda is prestige seat. In this belt, Yadav has been spearheading farmers’ agitation for the last two years against land acquisition for Adani plant at Poraiyahat in Godda district. Yadav was even arrested by police on April 2017. Against it, JVM supporters had hit the road.

The Adani Group led by Gautam Adani has proposed for Godda 1,600 Megawatt (MW) plant, a project fuelled with Australian and Indonesian coal imports.

The plant once completed in 2022 is to sell electricity via high tension lines to Bangladesh. The proposal for the plant came in August 2015, following a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bangladesh.

As per the Mahagathbandhan seat sharing formula, the set was reportedly discussed in Delhi between Congress president Rahul Gandhi and JMM acting president Hemant Soren.

 

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