BJP’s candidate Muniya Devi has opened a lead over JMM’s Kalpana Soren, wife of CM Hemant Soren, in Gandey Assembly segment. Sitting MLA Kalpana secured the seat in a by-election held in 2024 due to the resignation of JMM MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad.
Gandey is a highly rural tribal Assembly constituency within the Giridih LS segment, which is in the Giridih district. The seat has witnessed a seesaw between the BSP and Congress since Jharkhand was created in November 2000. How about JMM; it has secured this three times 2005, 2019, 2024 bypoll BJP in 2014 and last but not least Congress in 2009.
In this election, Soren is up against Muniya Devi of the BJP and Md Aqueel Akhtar of the Jharkhand Kranti Loktantrik Morcha (JKLM). Despite occupying important positions in JMM in the past and being the wife of state Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Kalpana entered mainstream state politics only recently at a rally during the party’s foundation day in March where she accused rivals of planning to harm both her husband and his government and asserted that Jharkhand would not allow anybody to destabilize it.
Kalpana, the Odisha based MTech and MBA degree holder turned to becoming a homemaker turned politician. She entered politics in 2023 at the same time when her husband the Chief Minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren faced legal issues in January 2024 when the Enforcement Directorate arrested him in a money laundering case linked to a land fraud.
The Gandey constituency came into limelight in the year 2024 bypoll when 24-year-old Kalpana set a record by marginalising BJP’s Dilip Kumar Verma by 27,149 votes and strengthening JMM’s grip on the area. But her current contest with BJP’s Muniya Devi is one of the most challenging ones to read her political prospects and that of JMM.
The fate of Gandey winning the election will also decide not only the cast of Jharkhand’s future but also the strength of resistance put up by JMM against the growing opposition pressure led by BJP in Jharkhand.
