By NewsDesk, TwoCircles.net
Jharkhand became the latest state to reject the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with the state voting the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in power. At the time of filing this report, the Mahagathbandhan was set to capture 47 seats, comfortably clearing the target of 41 needed for a majority. BJP, which initially seemed to be emerging as the single-largest party, is now well behind the JMM at 25.
The state voted in five phases and threw some interesting results. Outgoing Chief Minister Raghubar Das, who has been winning the Jamshedpur East seat since 1995, was trailing to independent candidate and BJP rebel Saryu Rai by over 7,000 votes. Hemant Soren, who is likely to be the new Chief Minister, won both his seats: Dumka assembly constituency by a margin of 13,188 votes and Barhait assembly constituency by a margin of 25,740 votes.
Since 2014, Jharkhand has seen the most number of lynching cases in the country and the saffron party tried capitalising on the same but failed miserably. The party got UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to campaign in the state, hoping that he would help consolidate votes against Congress candidate Irfan Ansari. Adityanath had said, “Koi Irfan Ansari jeetega to Ram Mandir nahi banaega (If Irfan Ansari wins, no one will build Ram Temple). However, the statement backfired and Ansari won his Jamtara seat against state assembly speaker and BJP candidate Dinesh Oraon by over 38,000 votes.
The state has voted in favour of the BJP in the past and in 2019 Lok Sabha elections the party won all but three of the 14 seats. In the previous elections, the saffron party had claimed the majority on its own (43).
At the time of filing this report, Raghubar Das had submitted his resignation to the state governor.