The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance is on course to retain power in the state, winning 56 of the 81 seats in the state’s Assembly election results. A party or alliance requires 41 seats to form the government.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s party won 34 seats while the Congress won 16, the Rashtriya Janata Dal four seats and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) two seats.

The Bharatiya Janata Party won 20 seats and was leading in one at 9 pm. Its alliance partners, the Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) won a seat each, as did the All Jharkhand Students Union, or AJSU Party.

The counting of votes for the Jharkhand Assembly election began at 8 am on Saturday.

The polls, which were held in two phases on November 13 and November 20, saw a voter turnout of 67.74%.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Left parties contested the Assembly elections in an alliance. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was in the fray from 43 seats, the Congress from 30, the Rashtriya Janata Dal from six and Left parties from the remaining three.

The Bharatiya Janata Party contested 68 out of the 81 seats while its ally, the AJSU Party, fought in 10 constituencies.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) contested from two constituencies while Union minister Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party faction fought from one seat as part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

2019 Assembly polls

The 2019 Jharkhand Assembly elections resulted in a victory for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance. The coalition won 47 out of 81 seats, with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha emerging as the largest party with 30 seats and its party leader Hemant Soren becoming chief minister. The Congress won 16 seats and the Rashtriya Janata Dal emerged victorious in one seat.

The Bharatiya Janata Party led by Chief Minister Raghubar Das, which had been in power earlier, managed to win only 25 seats. Das lost his own constituency of Jamshedpur East to BJP rebel Saryu Roy.

Exit polls predict close contest

This year, according to an average of exit polls, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is tipped to win 39 seats, while the INDIA bloc led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha coalition is predicted to win 38 seats.

This could mean that neither coalition will touch the halfway mark of 41 needed to form the government in the 81-seat Assembly.

Key contests

Some of the key battles that are likely to be settled today include that of Chief Minister Hemant Soren versus the BJP’s Gamaliel Hembrom in Barhait. The chief minister has held the seat since 2019.

Kalpana Soren, the chief minister’s wife, will take on the BJP’s Muniya Devi from Gandey, a seat that was won by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in 2019. Kalpana Soren became the MLA from the seat in a bye-election earlier this year.

Former Chief Minister Champai Soren, who defected from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha to the BJP in August, is contesting from his stronghold of Seraikella, where he has served as the MLA for five terms. He is contesting against the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Ganesh Mahali.

Earlier this year, Champai Soren served as the state’s seventh chief minister from February to July after Hemant Soren was arrested in a money laundering case. Upon Hemant Soren's release on bail, Champai was asked to step down to reinstate Hemant as the head of the state.

Champai said he felt humiliated by the decision, which prompted him to ally with the BJP.

In Jamtara, the BJP’s Sita Soren is facing off against Congress’s Irfan Ansari. Sita Soren is the wife of the chief minister’s brother Durga Soren, who died in 2009.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Jharkhand saw the National Democratic Alliance winning eight of the state’s 14 parliamentary seats, while the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha managed only three seats and the Congress took two. The AJSU Party won a single seat.

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