State Congress president Ajoy Kumar, JMM working president Hemant Soren (third from left) and Babulal Marandi ... Read More

RANCHI: The Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Jharkhand Vikas Morcha – Prajatantrik, RJD, CPI, CPM, CPI-ML and Marxist Coordination Center (MCC) on Thursday unanimously agreed to contest the Parliamentary and Jharkhand Assembly elections this year in a coalition.

Though the opposition parties did not discuss seat-sharing formula and shelved the bargaining exercise for January 30, it unanimously agreed to project JMM working president Hemant Soren as the alliance’s leader for the assembly polls, scheduled later this year.

Jharkhand Congress president Ajoy Kumar and its legislative party leader Alamgir Alam, JMM working president Hemant Soren, JVM-P chief Babulal Marandi , state RJD president Annapurna Devi , CPI veteran Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Mehta, CPI (ML) state committee secretary Janardan Prasad, MCC legislator Arup Chatterjee and CP M Gopi Kant Bakshi attended the meeting at Soren’s Kanke Road residence, which ran for two and a half hours.

“Everyone decided to contest the elections together so that BJP can be routed from the Center and the state,” Marandi told reporters after the meeting. “Today, we discussed what the outline of this Mahagatbandhan would be,” he added.

Soren, with Kumar and Alam by his side, announced that JMM and all parties in the meeting will contest the Lok Sabha polls under Congress leadership. “Congress is the biggest opposition party nationally and will naturally lead the pack,” he said. However, Soren kept the pressure on Congress and other parties by announcing that the JMM wants seat-sharing agreement for assembly polls to be sealed by January 30. Kumar later said Congress’s priority was to outline the seat-sharing formula for Parliamentary polls, which is due in three months.

The opposition leaders emerged from the meeting together, showing their unity. Soren, speaking to reporters next, said: “We will close this alliance (finer points) by January 30. The announcements (on seat-sharing) will be made in New Delhi and Ranchi after discussions with everyone.”

The party representatives did not divulge finer points of the meeting. MCC’s Chatterjee said it was unanimously agreed that a joint committee will be constituted to work out the modalities of seat-sharing.

