SP to contest at least four LS seats in Jharkhand

Samajwadi Party would contest at least four seats in Jharkhand in the Lok Sabha polls and is preparing to contest all 81 seats in the assembly elections as the term ends later this year, a senior SP leader said today.

"The party has announced names for three seats while the candidate is being finalised for Ranchi LS constituency," SP's Jharkhand unit president Manohar Yadav said here. The party has fielded Ranjan Yadav from Chatra, Jaydeo Choudhary from Koderma and Ram Badan Ram from Palamau constituencies, he added. Yadav, a former RJD leader, said the SP was pondering over contesting one or two more seats in Jharkhand. There are a total of 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Yadav said he quit RJD on February 19 and joined SP on March 4. He was appointed as the state unit chief by party president Mulayam Singh on March 11."I was associated with RJD chief Lalu Yadav for over two decades. I was among the 11 RJD leaders who took out 'padyatra' from Ranchi to Patna in August 1997 to protest Laluji's arrest and imprisonment in the fodder scam case," the 40-year-old leader said. "But when Islam Nagar and Nagababa Khatal were demolished in Ranchi during the erstwhile Arjun Munda-led government's anti-encroachment drive, Lalu ji did not even come once," he added. "And it is eight months since RJD has joined the Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand, but no action has been taken to restore the dwellers of the two areas despite my having approached the ministers belonging to RJD to look into it," Yadav said clarifying why he had left the RJD.