Ranchi:

The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Sunday parted ways with the opposition Bloc India and announced that it would contest eight of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming elections.

The Communist Party of India has no representation in the lower house of the Jharkhand Assembly.

“We have decided to contest the Lok Sabha polls on our own,” Communist Party of India state secretary Mahendra Pathak told news agency PTI.

“The BJP has announced its candidate but the Congress and the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ are yet to hold any talks on seat sharing. Therefore, we have decided to go it alone,” he said.

He said the decision was taken at a meeting of the party’s state executive committee.

The Communist Party of India will field candidates in Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Kodma, Chhatra, Palamu, Giridih, Dumka and Jamshedpur Lok Sabha constituencies.

Pathak said the list of candidates will be announced after March 16.

Meanwhile, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), which leads the ruling alliance in Jharkhand, said the decision by the state unit of the Communist Party of India raises questions about discipline within the party.

JMM spokesperson Manoj Pandey said: “It is beyond my understanding… that the national unit can take such a decision. Discussions on seat sharing are already taking place at the national level.”

Of the 14 seats in the state, the BJP has 11, the AJSU party has one seat, the JMM has one seat and the Congress has one seat.

However, Congress’s lone MP Geeta Kolla recently switched to the BJP.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)