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Tough going for Marandi in bypoll

It is going to be a tough fight for Chief Minister Babu Lal Marandi who is seeking his maiden entry to the Jharkhand Assembly from Ramgarh, the byelection for which is being held on February 19.

Queering the pitch is Nadira Begum, widow of Communist Party of India legislator Shabbir Ahmad Qurashi, whose death necessitated the bypoll. Though the opposition failed in its efforts to put up a joint candidate against him, the Begum is being supported by all the Left parties, including the CPI(M), CPI(ML), RSP and Forward Bloc, apart from the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Former Congressman Yamuna Sharma and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Arjun Ram are among the seven candidates in the fray.

The Left parties have made the recent police firing at Tapkara as its major issue and demanded Marandi's resignation for failing to maintain law and order in the state. The ruling regime could, however, gain from the bickering among the opposition parties.

Marandi has been making frequent visits to the constituency to ensure support.

The constituency had never remained faithful to one party in nearly three decades. The seat was won by the Janata Party in 1977, by the JMM in 1980, the Congress in 1985, the JMM again in 1990, by the BJP in 1995 and the CPI in 2000.

In the last election held in February this year Quraishi had won the seat by a margin of over 12,000 votes defeating his nearest rival, the JMMs Arjun Ram. The CPI had polled 42,599 votes followed by JMM (30,013 votes), BJP (28,442 votes), RJD (7,500 votes).

The CPI(M-L) had polled 6,500 votes, while the Congress received 4,000 votes.

The fate of seven contestants will be decided by the 1,97,077-strong electorate who would exercise their franchise at 267 polling stations of which 36 had been declared super sensitive and 100 sensitive.

UNI

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