Ranchi: If first Chief Minister of Jharkhand Babulal Marandi's USP is his clean image, the reverse is the case with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha Chief Shibu Soren. With corruption being a major issue in poll-bound Jharkhand, all eyes are on the tribal stronghold of Santhal Pargana - home turf of both former CMs. The question is will this election will bring about the downfall of one tribal leadership and emergence of the other?

If an internal survey conducted by the Congress is any indication, Marandi's clean image is likely to make a huge difference to the political fortunes of the national party which has entered into an alliance with the former BJP man.

Marandi enjoys a better reputation than any of the contenders or former chief ministers in the state, said a Congressman, and it was this feedback which led the party to offer 19 of the 81 seats to the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha. The party had conducted a sample survey among 10,000 voters across the state to assess its prospects in wake of its tie-up with JVM.

Soren, though, appears to be on the back foot after his reputation took a back seat for the criminal charges he faced for his alleged involvement in the murder of his personal secretary Shashinath Jha. More recently, his defeat in the Tamar by-elections at the hands of a political beginner came as a huge embarrassment to him and his party leading to his resignation and subsequent imposition of President's rule in the state.

Though tribals look up to him as the 'dishom guru', they have learnt not to vote blindly as they proved during the post-bribery parliamentary elections - rejecting his wife Rupi in 1998 LS elections, said an observer. Nepotism in the JMM leadership has also not gone down well with the party rank and file after Soren time and again fielded his sons and wife ignoring other eligible candidates.

This time too, the JMM has fielded Hemant, his second son and Dumka MP, while other son Durga's widow Sita will try to garner sympathy votes from the Jama constituency from where her husband was MLA twice.

Soren recovered some of his lost pride when he won both the Dumka and Jamtara seats in the 2009 parliamentary elections, thus garnering enough courage to go it alone in the assembly polls this time. Soren's loss, however, appears to be Marandi's gain.

Marandi though has been suffering organisational hiccups from the time he formed JVM after quitting the BJP. One by one, at least four BJP MLAs who left the party to join JVM later deserted him, leaving him with just Pradeep Yadav, Poreiyahat MLA who recently quit the Jharkhand assembly after he was charged with defection.

Marandi also faced stiff opposition from his party workers for whom everything went wrong after he tied up with the Congress and was allotted only 19 seats. "We had expected to get party tickets for this election, but the alliance has dashed our hopes," they said. Marandi has only his own clean image to fall back on and ride piggyback on the star campaigners of the Congress.