Babulal Marandi wins Koderma LS seat

Giridih, Nov 9: Independent candidate and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi today won the Koderma parliamentary seat by-election, defeating his nearest rival Manoj Yadav of the Congress by a margin of over 1,94,000 votes.

Mr Marandi bagged 3,25,871 votes while Mr Yadav polled 1,31,731 votes in the by-poll, held on November six.

BJP's Pranab Verma was placed third with 1,15,892 votes.

Mr Marandi, also the Jharkhand Vikash Morcha president, retained the seat by a bigger margin than the last Lok Sabha elections when he defeated his nearest rival, Champa Verma of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, by over 1,57,000 votes.

The by-poll was necessitated following Mr Marandi's resignation from the Lok Sabha in May this year. He also resigned from the BJP's primary memership at the same time.

UNI