All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) candidate Sunita Chaudhury won the bypoll for the Ramgarh assembly seat on Thursday. Sunita Chaudhury, the wife of AJDSU member of Lok Sabha Jayaprakash Chaudhury defeated Bajrang Mahto of the Congress by 21970 votes.
Chaudhury was supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while Mahto was backed by the ruling JMM.
“The Ramgarh election result is the result of misuse of money and muscle power,” said Jharkhand chief minister, Hemant Soren, who had campaigned actively in Ramgarh and addressed election meetings for two days.
“Muslims did not support the UPA candidate, Hence, the Congress nominee lost,” said Irfan Ansari, the working president of the Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee.
Union minister Arjun Munda, BJP vice-president Raghuwar Das, and former Union minister Jayant Sinha had convassed in Ramgarh to seek votes for the AJSU candidate.
The bypoll was the fifth in the Mahagatbandhan government of Jharkhand being led by JMM.
In the assembly elections of 2019, Mamta Devi of the Congress had won the Ramgarh seat and become a first-time MLA. She had got a total of 99,944 votes, while Chaudhury had got 71,266 votes to come second.