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NEW DELHI: Jharkhand BJP president and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi is leading by 1,840 votes over CPIML’s Rajkumar Yadav in the Dhanwar assembly seat after the first round of vote counting, according to the Election Commission of India.
Marandi, who won the Dhanwar seat in 2019 as a Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) candidate, defeated BJP’s Lakshman Prasad Singh by a margin of 17,550 votes. He later merged his party with the BJP and has since become a prominent face of the saffron party in the state.
Chief Electoral Officer K Ravi Kumar stated that counting is being conducted under strict security measures, with results expected by 4 PM. The counting process varies by constituency, with Torpa having the lowest 13 rounds and Chatra the highest at 24.
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This year’s assembly elections recorded a historic voter turnout of 67.74%, the highest since Jharkhand’s formation in 2000. The polls were held in two phases on November 13 and 20. Results for all 81 assembly seats will be declared on November 23.
Dhanwar is one of the most closely watched constituencies, given Marandi’s candidacy. A four-time Lok Sabha MP, Marandi also served as Union Minister of State for Forests and Environment from 1998 to 2000. He was appointed BJP’s Jharkhand president in July 2023 and has been pivotal in leading the party’s charge against the ruling JMM-led INDIA bloc.
The elections mark a critical battle between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the JMM-led coalition. The JMM alliance, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren, won the 2019 elections and has since governed the state.
