The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) Friday announced it will contest six seats in the Bihar Assembly election, breaking away from the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance). It has also warned it would “review its alliance in Jharkhand” after the election and ensure that “no government in Bihar is formed without JMM’s support”.
Making the announcement at a press conference Saturday evening , JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya said the number of seats could go up to 10. The JMM had been “betrayed again and again, especially in Bihar”, Bhattacharya alleged.
“The party can tolerate anything, but it will not compromise on its self-respect,” he said. “In the 2019 election, we gave the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) seven seats in Jharkhand, out of which only one candidate won, and we made him a minister for five years. In the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly election too, we gave the RJD six seats, and again, one of their MLAs was made a minister as a mark of respect. We have always shown respect, but in return, we have always been betrayed.”
In both 2019 and 2024, the JMM and the RJD clashed over seat-sharing arrangements, causing a strain within the Mahagathbandhan alliance. The JMM had allotted seven seats to the RJD in the 2019 Jharkhand Assembly election as part of the Mahagathbandhan agreement, but the latter managed to win only one. Despite this, JMM accommodated the lone RJD legislator with a ministerial berth in the Hemant Soren government.
Ahead of the 2024 Assembly polls, the JMM again ceded six seats to the RJD, but the latter once more secured only a single victory. The JMM had been seeking seven seats within the Mahagathbandhan in the Bihar Assembly election, but seat-sharing talks with the RJD fell through.
Bhattacharya said the party will have 20-star campaigners for the Bihar Assembly election, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren. The list, already submitted to the Election Commission, includes MLAs Kalpana Soren, Vijay Hansda, Mithilesh Thakur, Vinod Pandey, Basant Soren, Supriyo Bhattacharya, Baidyanath Ram, Hemlal Murmu, Sudivya Sonu, and Abhishek Prasad Pinto, among others.
A day earlier, Jharkhand minister Sudivya Kumar Sonu said he had informed RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav about the seats JMM was willing to contest in Bihar.
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Addressing the media in Ranchi, he said the issue was discussed during a recent meeting in Patna, where the potential benefits of JMM’s participation for the INDIA alliance were highlighted, particularly in terms of vote consolidation. “We raised these issues during the alliance meeting with RJD on October 6,” he said.
He added that it was decided in that meeting that Chief Minister Hemant Soren and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav would discuss the matter further.
