Confident of defeating Raghubar Das from Jamshedpur East seat: Cong' Gaurav Vallabh

Congress candidate from Jamshedpur East seat, Professor Gourav Vallabh on Sunday expressed confidence that he will win comfortably despite being pitted against incumbent Chief Minister Raghubar Das in the Jharkhand assembly polls.

The fight on the Jamshedpur East Assembly constituency became even more interesting when Das' old colleague and BJP leader Saryu Rai announced he would fight from the same seat as an independent candidate against the Chief Minister.

"It is a fight of two alliances. On one side there is Gaurav Vallabh as a candidate from the grand alliance of Congress, JMM and RJD. On the other hand, two candidates of BJP -- Raghubar Das and Saryu Rai are in an alliance. This is a fight of development and truth versus destruction and lies," Vallabh told ANI here.

Asserting that both Das and Rai are in an alliance he said, "I do not do politics of benefits. I carry my own development agenda. They (Das and Rai) are not against each other but together because they are afraid of me. They think when Sambit Patra could not stand against him, then he will definitely destroy us."

Vallabh, who is also Congress' national spokesperson, accused the two BJP leaders of "cheating and lying" to the people of Jamshedpur.

Criticising the state government, he said there was no institute for local youths.

"It has been 19 years of the formation of this state out of which BJP ruled for 15 years. They should tell the people which institutions they have opened. 393 schools have closed in Jamshedpur. A total of 13,000 schools closed in Jharkhand. You might be thinking that new colleges are set up after closing the schools, instead government-approved wine shops were opened," he said.

The Congress has formed an alliance with Shibu Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the state.

Congress will contest on 31 out of 81 seats in the Jharkhand assembly polls, while the RJD will try its luck on seven seats. The largest chunk of the seats has gone to the JMM, which will contest elections on 43 seats.

Jamshedpur East will witness polling on December 7 along with 19 other constituencies in the second phase of Assembly elections.