Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, Nov 6: Though political camps are biding their time in matters of announcing the names of candidates, stray reports and mere guesses are setting some minds ticking. While it is evident that parties �affiliated� to the Grand Alliance of the opposition are planning to come out in the open to announce names of candidates for the Assembly fray depending on permutations and combinations of the seat sharing ratio, the factors of agreement and disagreement to the proposals will weigh on the ultimate hustings prospects.
In the meanwhile, there is information that a list of Congress candidates, each, for the Jamshedpur East and Jamshedpur West constituencies have been tabled at the party�s Delhi high command office. The lists have been trimmed down to three likely contenders for the party ticket in each constituency.
Among the three �finalists� for the Jamshedpur East constituency are the party�s old guard who has served the Congress for almost four decades PN Jha, trade union leader Rakeshwar Pandey and Yogendra Sharma alias Munna Sharma who has established a strong foothold among the masses by taking up the issue of ownership rights for residents of the 86 Bastis.
Moving over to the �Western Front� Jamshedpur Vidhan Sabha constituency, the list of candidates finally has been sized down to former party legislator and Jharkhand minister Banna Gupta, trade union leader Raghunath Pandey and Dharmendra Sonekar. At the time of going to press, the latest info is that Dharmendra Sonekar is leading the pack for tick off. Dharmendra was a confidante of Banna Gupta at one point of time and took membership of the Congress party six months earlier but his commitment to party activities and programs brightened his chances for a VS ticket this time around.
Banna Gupta won the Assembly elections in 2009 from the Jamshedpur West VS constituency and went on to become a Jharkhand minister but the hustings� luck eluded him in the 2014 polls when veteran BJP leader Saryu Roy toppled his applecart of prospects. Incidentally, Saryu Roy had emerged victorious in the 2004 Vidhan Sabha bout also.
The names of Congress candidates for the two constituencies are likely to be announced shortly. It all depends on the outcome of the Grand Alliance seats deal. In case the Grand Old Party does not agree to the seat allotment equation, the Congress may go it alone; but even if it does agree, there is no doubt that the party will press for its candidates for both these prestigious constituencies.