Congress announces 21 candidates for Jharkhand Assembly elections

The Congress on Monday announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Jharkhand Assembly election. State Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon and senior Congress leader Ajoy Kumar are among the 21 candidates named by the party.
While Oraon will contest from Lohardaga Assembly seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes, Kumar, who is the party in-charge for Tripura, Odisha and Nagaland, has been fielded from Jamshedpur East constituency.
Shipli Neha Tirkey, the sitting MLA from the Mandar (ST) constituency, has been nominated again to contest the same seat. Her father, Bandhu Tirkey, plays a significant role in the upcoming Jharkhand polls as the chairman of the Congress’s manifesto committee.
Other prominent leaders named in the list include Irfan Ansari from Jamtara, Pradeep Yadav from Poreyahat, Jai Prakash Patel from Mandu, Banna Gupta from Jamshedpur West, Badal Patralekh from Jarmundi, Deepika Pandey Singh from Mahagama, Amba Prasad Sahu from Barkagaon, Mamta Devi from Ramgarh, Munna Singh from Hazaribagh, Kumar Jai Mangal from Bermo, Purnima Niraj Singh from Jharia, Jaleshwaro Mehato from Baghmara, Sona Ram Sinku from Jaganathpur (ST), Rajesh Kachhap from Khijri (ST), Ajay Nath Sahdeo from Hatia, Bhushan Bara from Simdega (ST), Naman Viksal Kongari from Kolebira (ST), Ramchandra Singh from Manika (ST).
Earlier, the top Congress leadership, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, along with several senior leaders, deliberated on the candidates’ names at a meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee.
The Congress is in alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). The Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and November 20, and the counting of votes will be taken up on November 23.