KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, March 16: Having realised that Mahto votes are a deciding factor for the victory in the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seat, the JMM is believed to have started brooding over a suitable candidate from the community to put in the fray.
As the Congress has no suitable Mahto face in its kitty, the onus of fielding such a candidate lies on the shoulder of the JMM which is bent upon snatching the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seat from the incumbent Vidyut Baran Mahto of BJP.
Although the I.N.D.I. Alliance is yet to finalise the seat-sharing exercise in Jharkhand, the JMM has decided to put its candidates for the Singhbhum and Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seats.
Ashtik Mahto or Suman Mahto?
Whereas the Kharsawan MLA, Dashrath Gagrai of the JMM is likely to be the alliance candidate for the Singhbhum seat, the party is in a fix on whether to select Ashtik Mahto or former MP Suman Mahto as candidate for the Jamshedpur seat.
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Knowledgeable sources in the local politics maintain that Ashtik Mahto popularly known as Babu Mahto may be a better candidate for the Jamshedpur seat from the JMM.
“But as far as chances of winning the Jamshedpur seat is concerned, Babu Mahto too seems to be a fragile candidate viz-a-viz the sitting BJP MP, Vidyut Baran Mahto, given works rendered in the public domain and his popularity, ” observed a local politician while talking to The Jharkhand Story.
Requesting anonymity the politician said that Vidyut Mahto always remains ready to help people in distress and has earned a reputation as a dependable leader for the residents here in the urban as well as in the rural areas of this Lok Sabha constituency.
Mahto dominance in Jamshedpur LS seat
After the JMM came into being as a strong regional party since the early nineties, Mahtos, including Shaindra Mahto, Abha Mahto, Sunil Mahto, Suman Mahto and Vidyut Baran Mahto have been elected from the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha constituency as many as eight times. Candidates other than Mahtos who made out to the Parliament from here during this period were Nitin Bharadwaj, Ajoy Kumar and Arjun Munda.
In the 2019 general elections, Chief Minister Champai Soren had been pitched against Vidyut Baran Mahto from the Jamshedpur seat and was defeated measurably.
