Jharkhand bypoll result: Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)'s Bebi Devi on Friday won a by-election in the Dumri Assembly seat by over 17,000 votes by defeating NDA candidate Yashoda Devi. The polling for the by-election was held on September 5. Of the total 2.98 lakh eligible voters, 64.84 per cent had cast their votes. The bypoll was necessitated after the death of JMM MLA Jagarnath Mahto, the state's Education Minister, in April. He had been representing the seat since 2005. The JMM victory is a big jolt to the AJSU-BJP alliance in the state and a massive relief for the incumbent Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
The JMM candidate who is also the I.N.D.I.A bloc nominee got about 1,00,317 votes while NDA candidate Yashoda Devi got about 83,164 votes after the counting of 24 rounds of votes, the official said. Giridih deputy commissioner-cum-district election officer Naman Priyesh Lakra said, "The counting of votes passed off peacefully. JMM's Bebi Devi won the election with a margin of 17,153 votes." Bebi Devi is the wife of former Jharkhand minister Jagarnath Mahto, whose death in April necessitated the by-election.
She termed her victory as a 'true tribute' to Mahto. The Dumri Assembly constituency in Jharkhand was represented by Mahto four times in a row from 2005 to 2023. Mahto won the seat in the 2019 Jharkhand Assembly Elections by defeating All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) candidate Yashoda Devi with a margin of 34,288 votes. Mahto received 71,128 votes (37.38%) against Devi's 36,840 votes (19.36%). BJP's Pradeep Kumar Sahu got 36,013 votes (18.93%) and came third.
