As the first phase of Assembly polls begins in Jharkhand on Wednesday, political experts say that the state would witness a keen contest but there would be no clean sweep for any party. In fact, many see this situation as a result of the existing diverse social structure comprising caste, religion and tribe — each a divided community — as also the small size of the House with only 81 members. Moreover, the election campaign has been devoid of any particular wave.

Political heavyweights like Congress president Sonia Gandhi, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani, BJP president Rajnath Singh, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, former Chhattisgarh CM Ajit Jogi, former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijay Singh, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav have campaigned for their respective parties or Front nominees.

Two rival fronts — Congress-JVM and the BJP-JD(U) — are contesting all the seats. So is the JMM. The RJD, CPI, CPI(ML) and CPM are contesting few of the seats.