Jharkhand Assembly election | North Chotanagpur in focus: BJP, INDIA bloc clash in Jharkhand’s political stronghold

North Chotanagpur region in Jharkhand, a key path to power with 25 Assembly seats, sees intense political battles.

Out of the five regions in Jharkhand, North Chotanagpur region is considered the most suitable path to reach the corridors of power. It has 25 Assembly constituencies across seven districts.

Jharkhand Assembly elections 2024: Key dates and candidates

This region includes Koderma, Ramgarh, Hazaribagh, Chatra, Giridih, Bokaro and Dhanbad districts. In the 2019 elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a total of 25 seat in the Jharkhand Assembly, out of which 12 seats belonged to this region. Congress had won 5 seats, JMM won 4 seats, and the RJD, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), and the All Jharkhand Student Union (AJSU) each won one seat, while one seat went to an Independent candidate.

The North Chotanagpur region is important because several prominent figures are in the fray, including Jharkhand’s first Chief Minister, Babulal Marandi, who is currently serving as the BJP state president, and Kalpana Soren, the wife of incumbent Chief Minister Hemant Soren, contesting from the Dhanwar and Gandey seats, respectively. Both are general seats.

When Jharkhand became a separate state, Mr. Marandi was a BJP MP from Dumka. Shabbir Ahmed Qureshi, the CPI MLA from the Ramgarh seat, had passed away, after which Mr. Marandi contested the by-election and won, thereby making him Jharkhand’s first chief minister.

Giridih district, which has six assembly segments, is central to North Chotanagpur, as it includes both Mr. Marandi’s and Ms. Soren’s assembly constituencies. Mr. Marandi faces two INDIA bloc candidates—JMM’s Nizamuddin Ansari and CPI (ML)’s Raj Yadav—who are in a friendly contest.

Meanwhile, Ms. Soren will face BJP candidate Muniya Devi in the Gandey constituency, which she won in a by-poll in May 2024 after the previous MLA, Sarfaraz Ahmed, vacated it in January 2024 and was later given a Rajya Sabha ticket. She entered politics when her husband was jailed in an alleged money-laundering case..