Jharkhand Elections 2024: Congress talks tough, rules out friendly fights as RJD demands more seats

A day after the Congress released its first list of candidates for the Jharkhand Assembly elections, the party said that friendly contests with allies in some seats will prove detrimental to the alliance and called upon partners Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Rashtriya Janata Dal to make sacrifices to ensure the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

On Monday evening, Congress released its first list of 21 candidates – Congress is expected to contest 30 seats and the JMM in 42 – for the Jharkhand elections. The INDIA bloc of JMM, Congress, RJD and the CPI(ML) are contesting the elections jointly.

However, the seat-sharing talks hit a hiccup as the RJD demanded 12-13 seats as part of the alliance and even threatened to contest alone. The RJD has been offered 5-6 seats while the CPI(ML) is expected to field candidates in 3-4 seats.

“Happy toh koi nahin hota hai seat-sharing mein (Seat-sharing leaves no one happy). But ultimately, if we have to fight a contest together, everybody has to make sacrifices and suffer some losses. We have to look at the larger picture and the larger goal, which is to defeat the BJP,” Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Congress MLA from Jammu and Kashmir and party in-charge for Jharkhand elections told The Indian Express.