The Hindu : New Delhi News : Congress pins hopes on Sonia visit to Jharkhand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 28, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Congress pins hopes on Sonia visit to Jharkhand

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 27. The Congress will conduct an intensive campaign against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition Government in Jharkhand, although there are no immediate plans for any joint rally with its ally, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.

With the first phase of voting for the 81-member Assembly scheduled for February 3, the Congress hopes that the party president, Sonia Gandhi's visit to the State on January 31 will provide impetus to the campaign.

Senior party leaders said that Ms. Gandhi would hold two rallies. She will campaign at least for a day in each of the two subsequent phases of elections scheduled for February 15 and 23. The effort is to try and hold a rally in separate regions of the State.

The Congress wants to concentrate on the 33 seats it is contesting instead of spreading its campaign thin across other constituencies. The JMM is contesting 35, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Left parties the remaining seats.

Factional feud

Infighting in the ruling alliance is a factor that may alter the ground situation. The feud between the Chief Minister, Arjun Munda, and his predecessor, Babulal Marandi, is public. And some Janata Dal (United) members have crossed over to the RJD.

The focus of the Congress campaign has been the "misrule" of the BJP-led Government. "Issues such as unemployment, corruption during the past four years, shutdown of factories, law and order problem and push by the BJP-led Government towards privatisation are going to be on our agenda," according to the AICC secretary, R.P.N. Singh.

MLA murder

Highlighting the law and order problem, Mr. Singh said the recent murder of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) MLA, Mahendra Singh, was a case in point.

The family of the slain leader had alleged that the callous attitude of the State Government led to the murder.

The Congress has finalised 17 candidates for the second phase. This includes the sons of two MPs, Vimal Sumarai (Chaibasa-ST) and Roshan Kumar (Khunti), whose mother Sushila Kerketta is the president of the Jharkhand unit of the party.

Also in the list is the former BJP MP, Salkhan Murmu (Jagannathpur), who recently joined the party.

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