By IANS,
Ranchi : The Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) candidates won the Rajya Sabha elections from Jharkhand Thursday.
Deeraj Sahu of Congress got 28 votes and JMM nominee K.D. Singh bagged 32 votes. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Ajay Maroo lost the election managing to get only 17 votes.
JMM nominee K.D. Singh, a Chandigarh-based industrialist, is chairman of the Alchemist group. He managed to get the support of 18 JMM legislators, five each of the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and independents.
The Congress re-nominated Dheeraj Sahu, a businessman and liquor baron of Jharkhand’s Lohardagga district. Sahu was supported by the Congress’ pre-poll alliance partner, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P). He got 14 of the 11 Congress and RJD votes and rest of the independents or smaller parties.
BJP nominee Ajay Maroo managed to get only 17 votes. One BJP legislator Ram Chandra Baitha abstained from the voting. BJP has 18 seats while its alliance partner Janata Dal-United (JD-U) has two legislators.
In the 81-member house, a total of 79 legislators cast their votes. The lone Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist legislator Vinod Singh abstained from voting. Two votes were found invalid. Three jailed legislators also voted – JMM legislator Polush Surin and two jailed independents Enos Ekka and Harinarayan Rai.
Voting began at 9 a.m. and ended at 4.30 p.m.