One of the influential political outfits in the coal belt, the Marxist Co-ordination Committee (MCC), has convened its central committee meeting on March 16 to decide on fielding its candidate from the Dhanbad constituency in the Lok Sabha elections.

Senior MCC leader and lone party MLA Arup Chatterjee said on Monday, “My party has not received any invitation for official talks from any opposition party for the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) till date. So, the MCC has convened a meeting on March 16 to decide whether to field a candidate from the Dhanbad Lok Sabha constituency or not.”

Dhanbad is considered a strong bastion of the MCC, which has won the seat thrice. Party founder AK Roy had won the seat in 1977, 1980, and 1989. Besides, the MCC’s Anand Mahto won the Sindri assembly seat four times continuously from 1977 to 1995.

The Nirsa assembly constituency in Dhanbad is considered an MCC stronghold, where the party has never lost since 1990, except once in 2004. The veteran leader late Gurudas Chatterjee won continuously from 1990 before being assassinated in 2000. Since then, his son Arup Chatterjee has been representing the seat in the assembly. Only in the 2004 assembly election did he lose the seat to Forward Bloc candidate Aparna Sengupta.

While Arup Chatterjee always stood with the opposition parties in the fight against the BJP, in the Nirsa assembly constituency, the MCC and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha are arch rivals.

First Published: Mar 12, 2019 14:30 IST