RANCHI: Jharkhand's INDIA bloc candidate and State Excise Minister Baby Devi retained her husband late Jagarnath Mahto’s Dumri Assembly seat by defeating NDA candidate Yashoda Devi of AJSU by 17,156 votes in the Dumri by-poll.
This is the first-ever victory registered by an INDIA bloc candidate in Jharkhand.
Baby Devi secured 1, 00,231 votes against that of 83,075 by Yashoda Dev.
However, the victory margin of Baby Devi is less than what her husband got in the 2019 Assembly polls. Mahto had defeated Yashoda Devi by 34,288 votes in the 2019 assembly election.
The election was held on September 5 and counting of votes was done on Friday.
Deposits of three other people in the fray --- Abdul Mobin Rizvi of AIMIM, and independent candidates, Roshan Lal Turi and Narayan Giri, were forfeited.
After winning the seat, Baby Devi said that she would fulfill the dreams of her late husband by bringing development to Dumri as she has been voted to complete the uncompleted works done by him.
Jharkhand Education Minister and senior JMM firebrand leader Jagarnath Mahto, 56, passed away during treatment at a Chennai hospital on April 6 this year. He was airlifted to MGM Chennai after his health condition suddenly deteriorated at Paras Hospital in the Jharkhand capital on March 14.
Mahto, a matriculate, came into the limelight by joining Class 11 at Nawadih Devi Mahto Inter School in Bokaro, a school set up by him in 2006 after becoming an MLA for the first time in 2005. He had decided to take admission in Inter-Arts to remove the blot of being termed as an underqualified education minister.
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, Mahto had also handed over Alto cars to state toppers of Class 10th and 12th examinations in Jharkhand.
The minister had also promised to adopt toppers from the next year so that they could complete their studies without any financial hurdles.
Notably, Devi is the second JMM leader to become a minister in the UPA government before being elected to the Assembly due to her bypoll win.
Earlier, Hafizul Hassan was sworn-in as minister in the UPA government on February 6, 2021, after the death of his father Haji Hussain Ansari who was a minority affairs minister in the Hemant Soren government.
Earlier, five assembly constituencies - Dumka, Bermo, Madhupur, Mandar and Ramgarh - went to by-elections.
The JMM retained the Dumka and Madhupur seats, while the Congress won the Bermo and Mandar seats.
Ramgarh assembly seat went to AJSU Party.
With victory of Baby Devi, JMM's MLA strength in assembly again rose to 30 and its coalition to 48 including 17 MLAs of Congress and one of RJD in the 81-member Jharkhand House.
The BJP has 26 members and AJSU Party three.
The NCP and CPI (ML) have one lawmaker each, apart from two Independents.
