JDU starts preparations to contest Assembly polls in Jharkhand under Shailendra Mahato

The Jharkhand unit of Janata Dal (United) has started preparations to contest the Assembly polls in the state on its own, the party's newly appointed state convenor Shailendra Mahato said Tuesday. JD(U) will contest in all the 81 seats in the state, Mahato said at a press conference here.

He said JD(U) is in the midst of a membership drive and has set a target of recruiting at least 2,000 new members in each district. Claiming that the response to the drive was "very satisfactory", Mahato said JD(U) is eyeing 50,000 new members in the state as a "gift" for party chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Mahato said that till date, there was no proposal to forge alliance with the BJP, an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Centre as well as in Bihar. On the issue of fielding candidates in the forthcoming parliamentary poll, Mahato said the party was waiting for the directive of the party high command.

Mahato claimed that JD(U) has a strong base here and had eight MLAs when the separate state of Jharkhand was formed in 2000. Of the eight MLAs, six were ministers in the Babulal Marandi-led cabinet, he said adding that the party had won six seats in the 2005 Assembly polls as well.

JD(U), however, has no representative in the current cabinet headed by Chief Minister Raghubar Das. Referring to the preparation for the Assembly poll, Mahato said he had already toured 12 districts including six in Santal Paragana and three districts in Kolhan division and cover the remaining 12 districts soon to garner support.

Mahato, who is also the central committee president of Kurmi Sena, an organization of Kurmi community, said the community demographically represents a single cluster of people with a population of more than one crore spread across Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam and West Bengal.