Jai Prakash Bhai Patel: Ex-BJP Leader To Wrest Hazaribagh, BJP Citadel For Congress (image: facebook.com/mlajpbhaipatel/)

In a major blow to the BJP in Jharkhand, Jai Prakash Bhai Patel, a BJP MLA, joined Congress in March ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Joining the party, Patel said that the BJP”s ideologies didn”t align with his father Tek Lal Mahto”s. Besides, he pledged to work toward strengthening the INDIA bloc in the state. In the polls, Congress gave him a ticket for the Hazaribagh parliamentary constituency.

JP Bhai Patel is a three-term MLA from the Mandu assembly segment, which falls under the Hazaribagh constituency. Before BJP and Congress, Patel had been a MLA of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). He won his first assembly election on a JMM ticket after his father, the sitting legislator, died in 2011. He retained the seat in the 2014 Assembly election as well.

In October 2019, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, he switched to the BJP. In the assembly polls, Jai Prakash bhai Patel won the seat by defeating Ajsu Party candidate Nirmal Mahto by a margin of 2062 votes. However, compared to 2014, in the 2019 election, Patel”s vote margin was reduced from 34% to 20%.

Hazaribagh constituency is considered a BJP stronghold and has been the family bastion of bureaucrat-turned-politician Yashwant Sinha. Notably, since 1998, this is the first time neither Yashwant Sinha nor his son Jayant Sinha are contesting the election. In 2019, Jayant Sinha won the seat by defeating Congress candidate Gopal Prasad Sahu for 479548 votes. But this time, the party has dropped Sinha”s family and fielded Manish Jaiswal, a two-time legislator from Hazaribagh. Considering the caste equations at play, the reports points in favour of Patel”s victory since he is an OBC leader, while Jaiswal comes from the Vaishya community.

Hazaribagh covers the entire Ramgarh and parts of Hazaribagh districts, and it comprises assembly segments including Barhi, Barkagaon, Ramgarh, Mandu, and Hazaribagh.