Jharkhand Assembly Elections 2024 | How have sitting CMs fared in polls

The elections to the Legislative Assembly of Jharkhand will be held in two phases --on November 13 and 20--while the votes will be counted on November 23.

The Congress is playing second fiddle to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren as they try to retain power, while the BJP looks to make a comeback.

The CM post in the state has remained between BJP and JMM since the formation of Jharkhand in 2000.

Ahead of the elections, let's take a look at how the sitting chief minister's of the state have fared in the past elections.

Babulal Marandi

Babulal Marandi served as the first chief minister of Jharkhand after the bifurcation of Bihar. In 2006 he floated a new political outfit named Jharkhand Vikas Morcha after resigning from both the Kodarma seat and the primary membership of the BJP. JVM was later merged into BJP in 2020.

Former Jharkhand chief minister and BJP state president Babulal Marandi won Dhanwar seat in Giridih in 2019 by a margin of 17,550 votes on a Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) ticket against his nearest rival Lakshman Prasad Singh of the BJP.

Arjun Munda

Arjun Munda served as the second chief minister of Jharkhand. He was elected to the Bihar Assembly in 2000 elections on a BJP ticket from the constituency of Kharsawan. After Jharkhand's formation, he was elected to the Jharkhand Assembly from the same constituency in 2005 and again in the 2011 by-election after assuming responsibility as the Chief Minister in September 2010.

Shibu Soren

Father of current Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the third CM of Jharkhand Shibu Soren held the Dumka Lok Sabha constituency since 1989 till 2019 barring a brief period from 1998-1999. In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections he lost to Sunil Soren of BJP from Dumka constituency.

While serving as the Jharkhand CM for his third term, Soren became the only sitting CM after UP Chief Minister Tribhuwan Narain Singh to lose a by-election. He was defeated by political novice Gopal Krishan Patar, alias Raja Peter, of the Jharkhand Party by a margin of over 9,000 votes.

Hemant Soren

Chief Minister Hemant Soren is the sitting MLA from Barhait (ST) constituency in Sahibganj district which he won by a margin of 25,740 votes over his nearest rival Simon Malto of the BJP in the 2019 assembly elections. The JMM working president has also represented the Dumka assembly seat twice — from 2019 to 2020, and from 2009 to 2014.

Raghubar Das

Raghubar Das served as the sixth chief minister of Jharkhand and represented the Jamshedpur East assembly constituency five times since 1995. In the 2019 assembly elections, former Jharkhand minister Saryu Roy become the second politician in the state to defeat an incumbent chief minister.

Denied re-nomination from his sitting Jamshedpur (West) seat by the BJP, Roy had quit from the Raghubar Das Cabinet and fought against Das from Jamshedpur (East) as an independent candidate.

Roy trounced Das by over 12,000 votes.

Champai Soren

Champai Soren served as the seventh chief minister of Jharkhand for a short period of 153 days from February 2024 to July 2024 after the arrest of Hemant Soren in a money laundering case. Champai has been representing the Seraikella Assembly constituency since 2005 when the first assembly elections were held Jharkhand.

In the 2019 elections, he had won the Seraikela seat on the JMM ticket by a margin of 15,667 votes over his nearest rival Ganesh Mahali of the BJP.

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

Subscribe and follow DH on Whatsapp, X, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram to never miss out on anything.