Jamshedpur, Dec 23: Stalwarts of Jharkhand politics on Monday received major setback with the announcement of Assembly polls results. Chief Minister Raghubar Das faced humiliating defeat from his arch rival and Independent candidate Saryu Roy by a margin of 15,725 votes. Saryu got 73,332 votes while Raghubar got 57,607.
The outcome across the 14 Assembly seats only goes to show that the voters favoured change this time. JMM bagged maximum seats from Kolhan.
Ever since nominations were filed for the Assembly polls, all eyes remained glued to Jamshedpur East seat, the home seat of Raghubar Das.
Although Raghubar Das took early lead but as counting progressed, Roy started bouncing back and by the end of fifth round he had taken lead by a margin of about 5,000 votes and by the end of 11th round the lead was more than 11,000 votes.�
Das had won the 2014 assembly polls from Jamshedpur East with a margin of 70,157 against nearest Congress rival Anand Bihari Dubey. Apart from Roy, the Chief Minister was also challenged by Congress Party�s national spokesperson and XLRI Jamshedpur Professor Gourav Vallabh and JVM�s central secretary Abhay Singh.
In an another setback, Kunal Sarangi, son of Jharkhand�s first Health Minister Dr Dinesh Sarangi and sitting MLA from Bahagora, was defeated by JMM�s Samir Mahanty by a margin of more than 50,000 votes.
In Manoharpur seat, Joba Manjhi from JMM defeated BJP�s Gurcharan Nayak by a margin of 16019 votes. Manjhi bagged 50945 votes while her rival bagged 34926 votes, in Majhgaon Niral Purty (67750) defeated BJP�s Bhupender Pingua by 47192 votes. Pingua polled 20558 votes.
In Jugsalai Assembly seat young face from JMM Mangal Kalindi turned out to be dark horse by defeating sitting MLA Ramchandra Sahis of AJSU.
In Potka, Menka Sardar gave BJP a good opening but could not maintain it.
Apart from Jamshedpur East, Jamshedpur West turned out to be another interesting fight. Though the leader of BJP Devendranath Singh was leading till 17th round but in the last few rounds Congress candidate Banna Gupta bounced back and turned out to be the winner. Despite all odds, Gupta managed to cover the gap and by 18th round despite lagging and defeated Devendra Singh by more than 22,000 votes.
With every lead that Saryu Roy and Banna Gupta took from Jamshedpur East and Jamshedpur West respectively, their party workers bursted fire crackers and rejoiced by dancing to the beats of drums. The high flying flags of cylinder, Congress and JMM and the confidence of the party workers conveyed the inclination since afternoon.
Roy who was inside the college campus since 10 am left the campus around 12:45 pm and was welcomed with huge roars by his supporters. Roy with folded hands thanked everybody for their support while Congress candidate Banna Gupta was inside the college campus, looking confident of victory.
Party cadres from JMM had the maximum reason to celebrate with gulal and drums. Four seats of Baharagora, Jugsalai, Potka and Ghatshila all went to the JMM kitty.��