Ahead of the highly contentious assembly elections in Jharkhand, BJP's election co-incharge and Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, met with All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) President Sudesh Mahto in Ranchi on Sunday (August 11). Visuals of their meeting have been widely shared on social media, where the two leaders were supposedly seen holding talks about the upcoming elections and the path forward for their alliance.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, the Assam Chief Minister praised the AJSU as an important component of the NDA alliance and expressed confidence in their preparation for the elections. "AJSU is a very important component of our alliance. We just met and talked to Sudesh. Everything is fine, and we are ready to fight the elections well," Sarma said.
Significantly, this meeting comes amidst reports that the NDA is set to announce its candidates for the assembly elections soon and therefore the BJP has intensified its efforts, holding meetings with alliance partners over the next 7-10 days.
'About BJP-AJSU alliance'
It is important to note that the BJP-AJSU alliance for the second time had contested in alliance for the Lok Sabha Polls 2024. However, this time their alliance , which had a strong performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Jharkhand, faced setbacks, losing three crucial seats. In 2019, the NDA had won 12 seats in the state, including one by the AJSU Party. However, in the recent elections, the alliance had to settle for nine seats, with the BJP winning eight and AJSU securing the lone seat of Giridih.
'Seats won by alliance in Jharkhand'
In 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP secured victories in several constituencies. Kali Charan Singh won the Chatra seat with a margin of 2.20 lakh votes against Congress's K N Tripathi. Bidyut Baran Mahato retained Jamshedpur for the BJP, defeating JMM's Samir Kumar Mohanty by a margin of 2.59 lakh votes. Other significant victories for the BJP included Annapurna Devi in Koderma, Manish Jaiswal in Hazaribag, and Sanjay Seth in Ranchi.
The AJSU Party also contributed to the NDA's tally by winning the Giridih seat, where Chandraprakash Choudhary defeated JMM's Mathura Mahato by 80,880 votes. Additionally, Nishikant Dubey retained Godda for the BJP, defeating Congress's Pradeep Yadav by a margin of 1.01 lakh votes.
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