Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren
Credit: PTI Photo
Patna: Proving political pundits wrong, the JMM-led I.N.D.I.A. alliance scored a landslide victory by winning 56 of the 81 seats in the tribal-dominated Jharkhand.
The Opposition led by the BJP scraped through in 25 seats; the JD(U) and LJP (Ram Vilas) won one seat each.
This is the first time in the history of Jharkhand that an incumbent government is returning to power, with Chief Minister Hemant Soren winning from his traditional seat of Barhait and helping his alliance win more than two-thirds of seats.
His wife Kalpana Soren wrested the Gandey seat, from where she had won the bypoll earlier this year when her husband was jailed in an alleged land-grab case.
Another prominent winner is former CM Champai Soren (Saraikela seat). Champai had dumped the JMM and switched to the BJP on the eve of elections.
Jharkhand BJP president and state’s first CM Babulal Marandi won from Dhanwar.
Hemant Soren's younger brother Basant Soren won from Dumka seat, a stronghold of the JMM.
Former Congress president and IPS-turned-politician Rameshwar Oraon won the Lohardagga Assembly constituency. However, another senior Congress leader and IPS-turned-politician Ajoy Kumar lost the Jamshedpur-East seat to BJP's Poornima Das, the daughter-in-law of former CM Raghubar Das. Incidentally, Ajoy was the SP of Jamshedpur before becoming an MP from the Steel City a decade ago.
Veteran socialist and sole JD(U) nominee Saryu Roy won from Jamshedpur West, defeating his rival and minister in the outgoing government, Banna Gupta.
In another surprising result, Geeta Koda, wife of former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda, lost from her bastion Jagannathpur. Geeta, who earlier served as a Congress MP, switched to the BJP to apparently escape trouble from investigating agencies in a money laundering case.
In Ranchi, BJP’s CP Singh maintained his winning spree by defeating JMM’s Mahua Manjhi, who, though a Rajya Sabha member, was contesting the Assembly seat.
Maharashtra Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
Jharkhand Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
Bypoll 2024 results | Check Karnataka results here
Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls took place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP went up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress tried to make their mark. Maha Yuti are currently comfortably poised to win. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faced a challenge after Hemant Soren's arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP, but look set to retain power with its I.N.D.I.A. allies. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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