New Delhi: Several Congress leaders claim that the ticket distribution process for the Jharkhand Assembly elections has been faulty, since internal surveys and party reports were overlooked. These leaders allege three top three leaders of the state, in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Rameshwar Oraon and the state unit president Keshav Mahto Kamlesh ignored the inputs.
According to insiders, the party had conducted three surveys, one of which was managed by Sunil Konugolu, while another one was conducted by the party itself, and the third one was delegated to an independent surveyor. Yet all the three surveys, according to two senior Congress leaders, were neglected in the distribution of tickets. A senior Congress leader sitting at the AICC alleged that “Konugolu’s suggestions were not taken in consideration in Haryana as well.”
Interestingly, according to these insiders, Jharkhand in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir was reprimanded by Rahul Gandhi in a meeting for ignoring important details regarding the ticket distribution. Word is, Mir was scolded for ignoring the “finest” candidate, Shweta Singh, for Dhanbad’s Bokaro Assembly constituency. In 2019, she had pocketed around one lakh votes yet lost the seat to BJP’s Biranchi Narayan. Party leaders claim that she is still the front runner on the seat but was not added to the list of probable candidates.
Sources also allege that the main person responsible for setting aside the internal surveys and overriding party reports, is the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader, Rameshwar Oraon. The reason for this, according to party leaders, is that the inhouse reports had suggested “over the limit” anti-incumbency against him from the Lohardaga constituency where he is the sitting legislator. The reports had suggested that he should be dropped from the list of candidates. Therefore, he had overplayed his role and actively asserted the idea of “sitting is getting”, which finally resulted in all the sitting legislators getting an upper hand in the candidate selection on their respective seats.
A senior Congress leader close to the top Congress leadership alleged, “Rameshwar Oraon cannot do it on his own. He cannot single-handedly make sitting legislators retain their respective seats. He may have the backing of an organisation-level senior in Delhi. Oraon has been given all the plum positions in Jharkhand after this gentleman got his position in Congress. Just to get a seat for himself from the Lohardaga Assembly constituency Oraon has crushed the careers of many deserving aspirants who were looking to get tickets from the seats from where the sitting legislators were facing legitimate anti-incumbency. More than half of the sitting legislators are facing overwhelming opposition from the people and may find it difficult to win the elections.”
However, all these charges are denied by sources close to the three leaders.
Also, a party insider in Jharkhand claimed that the screening committee members had themselves visited different constituencies and sought names from the people as to who should be given tickets. A senior Congress leader said, “The screening committee led by Girish Chodankar did a great job and went to several districts and Assembly constituencies to check the merit of probable candidates. I think surveys have not worked well for the Congress. If the surveys are executed correctly but are getting maligned while reaching up, then the Congress needs some extra mechanism to preserve the originality of the surveys. Because surveys seem to have done much harm than profit for the Congress everywhere. Whether it be Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh or Haryana.”
Congress has fielded 15 of its total 17 sitting MLAs in the first list of 20 party candidates for the Jharkhand Assembly elections. The two sitting MLAs whose seats have been put on hold for further discussions are Alamgir Alam and Umashanker Akela, who are embroiled in some cases.