Hemant Soren's sister, Anjali, will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Odisha.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has decided to fight the upcoming Lok Sabha and state assembly elections in Odisha in alliance with the Congress, news agency PTI reported today. Seat-sharing negotiations will be completed in four days, it added.
The assembly polls in Odisha will be held along with the Lok Sabha elections in four phases, starting April 11.
JMM chief Shibu Soren's daughter, Anjali, will stand from the Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha constituency, the news agency quoted party central working president Hemant Soren as saying. This would be her first foray into electoral politics, the former Chief Minister added.
According to PTI, Hemant Soren said the JMM is in talks with the Congress for fielding candidates from Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh districts in the state assembly elections.
The Congress-JMM alliance will be taking on the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and an aggressive BJP in the upcoming elections. The BJD had won 117 seats in the 2014 state assembly elections, leaving just 16 for the Congress and 10 for the BJP. Its showing was equally impressive in the Lok Sabha polls, winning 20 of the state's 21 parliamentary constituencies. While the BJP won a single seat, the Congress got none.
Mr Patnaik, meanwhile, is not looking for alliances of any sort. He has maintained equal distance from both Congress and the BJP -- only offering issue-based support. Last year, he had even turned down Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's initiative for a federal front that neither has the BJP nor the Congress. Last year, he staged a walkout from the Lok Sabha just before a no-trust motion was taken up by the opposition against the Narendra Modi government.
The BJD had announced 33% reservation for women in party tickets hours before Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora revealed the election schedule today.
(With inputs from PTI)