BJP-JMM locked in straight contest for RS seat in Jharkhand

BJP candidate M J Akbar and JMM nominee Haji Hussain Ansari are locked in a straight contest for the July 2 Rajya Sabha election in Jharkhand with the journalist-turned-politician weighing heavily on his opponent in the 82-member House.
"The BJP and the JMM candidates are left in the fray after the last date of withdrawal yesterday," Assembly secretary-cum-returning officer Sushil Kumar Singh said today.
The BJP has 43 members and its ally AJSU Party has five members, taking it to 48.
Meanwhile, according to sources in the Assembly secretariat, Speaker Dinesh Oraon would seek legal advice following the recent conviction of Ajsu MLA Kamal Kishore Bhagat as to whether he would be eligible to vote or not in the RS elections.

Bhagat was sentenced to seven years in prison by a local court in connection with an attack on a doctor in 1993.
Former chief minister Hemant Soren, who is also the working president of JMM that has 19 MLAs in the House, today said he would speak to all the 81 elected members of the House to vote for his candidate.

Soren told reporters that he would demand to the Speaker that the six MLAs who joined the BJP from the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik-JVM) should not be given the voting right till their disqualification petition was disposed of.
The Speaker, who will hold a court on July 3 in connection with the disqualification petition filed by the JVM, has already said that the six MLAs could participate in the RS voting.

The following is the party position in the Jharkhand Assembly; BJP (43), Ajsu party (5), JMM (19), JVM (2), Congress (6), BSP (1), Jharkhand Party (1), Marxist Coordination Committee (1), CPI,ML-Liberation (1), Navjawan Shangharsh Morcha (1), Jai Bharat Samanta Party (1), besides a nominated MLA who has no voting right in the elections for the upper house.