Union minister Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party will contest six seats in Jharkhand, where the party was excluded by three other United Progressive Alliance partners in the seat-sharing arrangement. LJP candidates will contest for Palamu, Chatra, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Koderma and Jamshedpur seats out of 14 Jharkhand LS seats, party spokesman Sanjay Singh said in Patna on Tuesday.
"LJP president Ramvilas Paswan has decided that the party will contest six seats in Jharkhand and announced candidates for three," Singh, spokesman and the party's lone member in the Bihar Legislative Council, said.
He said while former Member of Parliament Ranjit Singh will be the party's nominee for Chatra, LJP national secretary Virendra Pradhan will try his luck in Dhanbad and Nityanand Mahto in Hazaribagh.
The names of the remaining three candidates would be announced on March 15, Singh said. LJP was allegedly sidelined by three major UPA partners in Jharkhand - Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya Janata Dal - which finalised a seat-sharing formula for all the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the tribal state on Monday, under which the Congress will contest six seats, JMM five seats and the RJD will contest three seats.