Jharkhand Assembly Polls: Fissures surfaced among INDIA bloc partners ahead of the Jharkhand assembly elections as the RJD on Saturday expressed disappointment over the announcement of JMM and Congress contesting 70 of 81 seats in the state.

The RJD said the decision on seat sharing by the two INDIA bloc constituents was “unilateral”. It also made it clear that “all options were open” to the party. The assembly polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20 and counting will take place on November 23.

“We express our disappointment over the offer of seats to us. The decision is unilateral,” Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha said. Earlier in the day, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren announced that the JMM and the Congress would contest 70 seats in the upcoming assembly elections.

Jha claimed, “We were not consulted. All options are open to us.” He said that the RJD has identified “at least 15 to 18 seats” in Jharkhand where it has the potential to defeat the BJP on its own.

Last time the party had contested seven seats and ended as runner-up in five of them. Jha said several senior RJD leaders, including Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav, were in Ranchi and held a meeting this morning.

“A proper consultation process should have been done before declaring the seats…No political party can reject the sentiments of its voters and supporters…we have enough strength,” he said.

In the 2019 assembly elections, the RJD won one seat. Its MLA Satyanand Bhokta is a minister in the Hemant Soren cabinet. The JMM-led alliance had, in 2019, won 47 seats in the Jharkhand assembly, including 30 seats of JMM and 16 of the Congress.

The BJP had secured 25 seats, JVM-P3, AJSU Party 2, CPI-ML 1, NCP- 1 and two independents emerged victorious. Currently, the Jharkhand assembly has 74 members, with the JMM-led ruling alliance having 44 MLAs.