As official trends indicate a majority for the Congress-JMM alliance, Congress' Jharkhand in-charge RPN Singh on Monday expressed confidence that the people will give a majority for the alliance and asserted that Hemant Soren will be the next chief minister of the state.
While he said that trends indicate an advantage for the alliance, Singh said it will be premature to make a comment now.
"We were confident that Jharkhand will give a clear majority to our alliance. Trends are good but I won't make comment until the final result. We have clearly said that Hemant Soren will be the chief ministerial candidate of our alliance," he told .
Asked why BJP had lost votes as per EC trends, Singh accused BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being silent on issues like inflation, farmers' distress and unemployment.
"The BJP and the Prime Minister did not speak on issues like unemployment, farmers' distress and inflation. Even the Home Minister (Amit Shah) and Chief Minister (Raghubar Das) did not utter a word," he said.
The Congress-JMM-RJD alliance is currently leading on 42 seats. While JMM is ahead on 24 seats, Congress and RJD are leading on 13 and five seats, respectively, according to EC trends.
The BJP, on the other hand, is ahead on 29 seats.
The counting of votes for 81 Jharkhand Assembly seats began at 8 am today in all the 24 district headquarters amid tight security.
The state went to polls in five phases from November 30 to December 20.
( With inputs from ANI )