Shibu Soren and Deepak Prakash win Rajya Sabha polls from Jharkhand
Ranchi/UNI: Three time former Jharkhand chief minister and JMM supremo Shibu Soren and state BJP president Deepak Prakash won the Rajya Sabha elections from Jharkhand on Friday.
Deepak Prakash got the maximum 31 votes while JMM supremo Shibu Soren popularly known as Guruji among his followers got 30 votes. Shahzada Anwar of Congress stood a distant third with only 18 votes. To get into Rajya Sabha a candidate needed 27 votes of first preference.
In the 81 member Jharkhand Assembly, 79 MLAs were eligible to vote as Dumka and Bermo seats are vacant. The Dumka seat fell vacant as Chief Minister Hemant Soren decided to retain the Barhet seat, after being elected from both the constituencies in the last assembly election. The Bermo seat fell vacant after six-time MLA and Congress heavyweight leader Rajendra Singh passed away recently.
Shibu Soren's victory was certain as JMM alone has 29 MLAs in Jharkhand assembly. On the other hand, the BJP has 26 MLAs and it had the support of two MLAs of AJSU and two Independent MLAs, including Saryu Rai and Amit Yadav.
Congress party was behind in the race as it had only 15 MLAs and was banking on support of Indpendent MLAs Bandhu Tirkey, Pradeep Yadav, Kamlesh Singh of the NCP and Binod Singh of CPI-ML and lone RJD MLA Satyanand Bhokta.
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