BJP firms up Jharkhand tie-up with JD-U

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday declared its first list of 58 candidates for the forthcoming Jharkhand assembly elections and said the remaining names would be finalised after details of seat-sharing with ally Janata Dal-United are completed.

"The BJP central election committee finalised candidates for 58 seats on Tuesday. Of these, seven are women, 22 from Scheduled Tribe and seven from Scheduled Caste," secretary, BJP CEC, Ananth Kumar said.

Three sitting MLAs have been denied tickets from their present constituencies due to delimitation. Earlier, senior leaders of BJP and JD-U held a meeting in New Delhi to discuss seat sharing for Jharkhand.

However, the talks were inconclusive as JD-U is demanding around 18 seats in the 81-member assembly  withh the BJP willing to give around 9-11 seats, sources said.

Candidates announced on Tuesday by BJP include its state unit president Raghubar Das from Jamshedpur East, Saryu Rai from Jamshedpur West, Chandreshwar Prasad Singh from Ranchi, Mahendra Bhagat from Kolebira-ST. Kunti Singh, wife of late Surajdeo Singh will contest on BJP ticket from Jharia. Ramchandra Baitha from Kanke-SC, Lues Marandi and Vijay Sav from Kodarma and Devdayal Kushwaha from Hazaribagh are other prominent candidates. Marandi is contesting against Stephen Marandi ,former deputy chief minister of Congress.