Jharkhand Lok Sabha election 2024: BJP names Arjun Munda and Annapurna Devi among 11 candidates | Full list here
According to the BJP’s Jharkhand candidate list for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Arjun Munda and Annapurna Devi, both Union ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, will contest against Khunti ST and Koderma respectively.
Lok Sabha elections 2024: The BJP on Saturday announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, naming candidates for 11 of the 14 seats in Jharkhand, including Union ministers Arjun Munda and Annapurna Devi, as well as former Congress MP Geeta Koda.
Munda and Annapurna Devi, both Union ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, will contest against Khunti ST and Koderma respectively.
Meanwhile, former Congress MP Geeta Koda, wife of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, has been summoned from Singhbhum (ST). She had won the Singhbhum seat in 2019 on a Congress ticket by a margin of 72,155 votes, defeating BJP’s Laxman Gilua.
Here is the list of candidates announced by the BJP for Jharkhand:
- Rajmahal– Tala Marandi
- Dumka– Sunil Soren
- Godda– Nishikant Dubey
- Koderma– Annapurna Devi
- Ranchi– Sanjay Seth
- Jamshedpur– Vidyut Baran Mahato
- Singhbhum– Geeta Koda
- Khunti–Arjun Munda
- Lohardaga– Sameer Oraon
- Palamu– Vishnu Dayal Ram
- Hazaribagh– Manish Jaiswal
New candidates
Among the eleven names announced by the BJP, there are four new candidates including Geeta Koda, Rajya Sabha MP Samir Oraon, Tala Marandi and Manish Jaiswal.
The seven other candidates will stand for re-election from their respective constituencies, including Union ministers Arjun Munda (Khunti ST) and Annapurna Devi (Koderma).
BJP’s Hazaribag MLA Manish Jaiswal will replace incumbent party member Jayant Sinha from the Hazaribag Lok Sabha seat. Jaiswal won Hazaribag constituency in 2019 through Dr. Ramchandra Prasad from Congress.
Sinha, son of former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, said earlier in the day that he had asked party president JP Nadda to relieve him from direct election duties as he wanted to focus on “fighting climate change in Bharat”.
Stalwarts took part in important seats
The BJP has reposed faith in its Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand Samir Oraon, whose term ends on May 3, for the Lok Sabha polls. Oraon, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2018, has been taken over from the Lohardaga (ST) seat, replacing existing MP Sudarshan Bhagat, whose victory margin in the last polls was barely 10,363.
The saffron party fielded its former Jharkhand state president Tala Marandi from Rajmahal (ST) seat, which is currently occupied by JMM’s Vijay Hansdak.
In 2019, Hemlal Murmu of BJP had contested from the seat and lost to JMM. Marandi had won the Borio assembly seat in 2014 on a BJP ticket. In 2019, Marandi had joined the AJSU party after he was denied a ticket from the BJP. However, he lost to JMM’s Lobin Hembrom. Marandi returned to BJP again in 2022.
Union Minister Arjun Munda has been re-elected from Khunti (ST) seat, which he had won by a narrow margin of 1445 votes in 2019, defeating Congress’ Kalicharan Munda.
The Palamu (SC) seat will be contested by former Director General of Police Vishnu Dayal Ram, who won the seat by a margin of 4,77,606 votes during the last polls.
Union Minister Annapurna Devi, who is contesting on a JVM-P ticket from Koderma in 2019, will contest from the same seat. She defeated BJP president and former chief minister Babulal Marandi by a margin of 4,55,600 votes.
From the Ranchi seat, the party has fielded sitting MP Sanjay Seth, who had defeated Congress’ Subodh Kant Sahay by a margin of 2,82,780 votes.
From Jamshedpur, BJP MP Bidyut Baran Mahto was repeated. Mahto had defeated current Chief Minister Champai Soren in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by 3,02,090 votes.
Dumka (ST) went to incumbent MP Sunil Soren, who defeated JMM president Shibu Soren in the 2019 polls by a margin of 47,590 votes, while incumbent MP Nishikant Dubey from Godda will contest. Dubey had defeated JVM-P’s Pradeep Yadav by 1,84,227 votes.
(With input from agencies)