Ashok Kumar Tripathi (right) of Bhushan Power and Steel at a Samjwadi Party news meet in Ranchi on Wednesday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, March 4: Now that elections have been announced, Jharkhand has become a happy hunting ground for the corporate world.

If the Congress and the BJP were already toying with the idea, the Samajwadi Party announced the candidature of Ashok Kumar Tripathi, a high-ranking official of Bhushan Power and Steel, for the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seat today.

Among those that the Congress was looking at for the Khunti seat was Jayant Jaipal Singh, a senior executive of Essar Steel, while the BJP has already announced that Nishikant Dubey, another senior Essar Group official, would be contesting from the Godda Lok Sabha seat.

“Usually, well-educated people do not like to come into active politics though they take pleasure in criticising its negative aspects,” said Tripathi. “I have decided to take the plunge as I feel that politics in India needs educated people like us.”

A former police officer from the UP cadre, Tripathi left his job to join the private sector. Apart from his responsibilities with Bhushan Power and Steel, he also spends time on social work. His BJP rival in Jamshedpur was none other than former chief minister Arjun Munda.

The BJP’s Godda nominee, Dubey has been involved in politics right from his student days. “I want to be in the Lok Sabha as a representative of the highly educated group,” said the senior Essar Group official. “My rallying point during campaigning would dwell around development.”

An MBA from Delhi University, Dubey has been an active member of the BJP and has been associated with the student’s wing of the party for several years.

He said he felt the “pain of under-development” of the Santhal Parganas, an issue he would focus on.

On the other hand, Jayant Jaipal Singh comes from a reputed political family of Jharkhand. His father, Jaipal Singh, was one of the first leaders to raise the question of a separate state soon after Independence.

Singh was among the three Congress hopefuls for the Khunti seat. The others —their names were announced yesterday after a meeting of the party’s core committee yesterday — were sitting MP Sushila Kerketta, Niel Tirkey and Kalicharan Munda.

Sources in the RJD said the party was considering Ajay Kumar, a former IPS officer who later did an MBA from XLRI, for the Jamshedpur seat. “However, the party was yet to finalise his candidature,” said a RJD leader.

The SP also announced names of five other candidates: While Digambar Mehta would contest the Hazaribagh seat, Hafijuddin Ansari was for Dhanbad, Daud Marandi for Rajmahal, Arjun Pujari for Dumka and Nanadlal Yadav for Godda.