Jharkhand elections: Congress fields Gourav Vallabh against Raghubar Das

The Congress on Saturday fielded its national spokesperson Gourav Vallabh to take on Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das in the upcoming assembly elections.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi approved Vallabh's candidature from the Jamshedpur East assembly constituency, while fielding Mamta Devi from the Ramgarh seat, a party statement said.

With this, the total number of candidates declared so far by the Congress for the Jharkhand elections is 27.

"I am ready for the challenge to take on the chief minister. The people of Jharkhand have been duped and I will emerge victorious in this electoral contest," said Vallabh, who recently went viral on internet after a showdown with BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra at a TV debate.

Jharkhand will vote in five phases, with the first on November 30 and the last on December 20. Results will be declared on December 23.

The Jarkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal had recently announced a pre-poll tie-up for the state with former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren as the alliance's CM face.

The Congress will contest 31 seats out of 81 seats in the Jharkhand assembly.

The RJD will contest on seven seats, while the largest chunk of the alliance share has gone to the JMM, which will contest elections on 43 seats.