Jharkhand Assmebly election 2019, Gandey profile: JMM’s Irfan Ahmed to contest against BJP’s Jai Prakash Verma.

Source – firstpost.com

Gandey election 2019 | Gandey Assembly constituency of the Giridih district will go to polls in the fourth phase of the Assembly elections in Jharkhand. The seat which lies in the Koderma parliamentary constituency, is currently held by BJP’s Jai Prakash Verma.

Demography: According to Census 2011, Giridih district has a population of  24,45, 474. With a sex ratio of 944, the district ranks seventh in the state. The district comprises of thirteen blocks Gawan, Tisri, Deori, Dhanwar, Jamua, Bengabad, Gandey, Giridih, Birni, Bagdar, Sariya, Dumri and Pirtand. As per Census 2011, the district has 2558 villages and 5 towns distributed in four Assembly constituencies. Census 2011 figures indicated that the percentage share of scheduled caste population to total population was 13.31 percent while that of Scheduled tribes was 9.74 percent. Based on the number of total rural households in Census 2011 and BPL Revision Survey of 2010-11 the percentage of Below Poverty Line (BPL)  households in the rural areas is 3.77 percent.

The district is well know for the availability of ruby mica and has several large coal fields which contain one of the best qualities of metallurgical coal in India. The extensive deposited of mica in this district are of importance not only to Jharkhand but to India and other countries also. It is mostly found near the Tisri and Gawan blocks.

Following is a brief description of the Assembly constituency:

Constituency number: 31

Total electors: 2,69084

Males: 1,40,764

Females: 1,28,314

Transgender: 3

Polling stations: 350

Voter turnout in last Assembly Election: 70 percent

Major parties in the fray: BJP, Congress, JVMP,, AJSU, BSP, IUML

The constituency is currently represented by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Jai Prakash Verma who defeated Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Salakhan Soren in the 2014 elections. In 2009, Soren, then the incumbent MLA, was defeated by Congress’ Sarfraz Ahmad by a margin of over 8,000 votes. In 2005, Soren had registered a victory over Ahmad.

Ahmad is contesting the 2019 election on a JMM ticket while Arjun Baitha is the AJSU candidate. Verma is also in the fray on a BJP ticket . The Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) has fielded Dilip Kumar Verma whereas the other candidates are BSP’s Avadhesh Kumar Singh, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s Intekhab Ansari, IUML’s Md. Sayeed Alam and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)’s Rajesh Kumar.

Fifteen Assembly constituencies will go to polls in the fourth phase of Assembly election on 16 December. The counting of votes for the five-phase Assembly elections will take place on 23 December.

The state is currently ruled by the BJP (37 Assembly seats) in alliance with the All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU) (5 Assembly seats). However, the BJP is seeking to come to power on its own after NDA allies, including Janata Dal-United (JDU) and AJSU decided to part ways with the saffron party.

The saffron party faces tough contest from the Opposition alliance consisting of the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and JMM. The alliance has rallied behind Hemant Soren as its chief ministerial candidate. JMM is contesting on 43 seats, the Congress on 31 and the RJD on seven seats in the 81-seat Assembly.

Out of the 81 Assembly constituencies in the state, nine are reserved for Scheduled Castes, 28 for Scheduled Tribes and 44 are of the general category. The term of the current Assembly will end on 5 January 2020.