By IANS
Ranchi : Jharkhand's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) suffered a major blow Tuesday with the Daltonganj assembly by-election going to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-backed independent candidate.
Former speaker Inder Singh Namdhari won the election with a thumping majority of 10,189 votes, defeating the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) candidate Anil Chaurasia who got 31,448 votes.
The Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) was third, while the two candidates of the UPA lagged far behind in fourth and fifth positions — National Congress Party (NCP) was fourth and Congress fifth.
The Janata Dal-United (JD-U) also failed to make any impact in the election held on Saturday.
"The results indicate that the UPA has no base in Jharkhand. The UPA government headed by Madhu Koda was formed by making a mockery of democracy and the results reflect the feeling of the people," said former chief minister and BJP leader Arjun Munda.
The Daltonganj assembly seat was vacated by Namdhari over differences within the JD-U. Namdhari was JD-U legislator and quit the party and membership of the assembly in March this year.