A year of elections is set to come to a close with the Jharkhand and Maharashtra Assembly polls and the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday that the eastern state will vote in two phases, beginning November 13.
The second phase of voting will be held on November 20 and the counting will take place on November 23.
Jharkhand has 81 Assembly seats, with 41 needed to get a majority, and 2.6 crore eligible voters. Polling was held in five phases in the 2019 Assembly elections.
The state is currently ruled by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in an alliance with the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which are also allies at the national level as part of the INDIA bloc. The alliance is hoping to form a government for the second consecutive time under Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
In the 2019 Assembly elections, the JMM had contested 43 seats and won 30, the Congress won 16 of 31 while the RJD managed to emerge victorious in only one of the seven constituencies it had put up candidates for.
The coalition faces a stiff challenge from the BJP, which was in power for a term before 2019 and is contesting the elections in an alliance with Sudesh Mahto's All Jharkhand Students Union, Janata Dal (United), Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) or HAM(S).
Of these, the LJP (Ram Vilas) and HAM (S) will be contesting the elections for the first time and the biggest party is the BJP, which had won 25 seats in the 2019 Assembly elections and 37 in 2014.
In the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, the BJP-led NDA had won nine of the state's 14 seats while the INDIA bloc got five.
One of the big issues in this election is the arrest of Hemant Soren in January by the Enforcement Directorate in a land scam case. Mr Soren was granted bail in June but his party got a jolt when Champai Soren, who was the chief minister in his absence and was seen as the JMM's number three, quit and joined the BJP in August.
Experts said Champai Soren's entry into the BJP is likely to help the party perform better in the state's 28 tribal constituencies, where the JMM has traditionally been strong, which will be critical in any alliance forming the government. Another factor that is likely to work in the BJP's favour is its surprise victory in Haryana after 10 years in power, which has enthused the state's cadre.
Before the Haryana results, the momentum was seen to be with the JMM-Congress alliance but a closer contest is expected now.
To a question on why the elections were being held in two phases in Jharkhand when Maharashtra is voting in a single phase, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that the state faces security issues, including the presence of Maoists, and voting was conducted in five phases last time.
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