Saryu Roy becomes second leader to defeat incumbent CM in J'khand

Ranchi, Dec 25: Former Jharkhand minister Saryu Roy has become the second politician in the state to defeat an incumbent chief minister, after Gopal Krishna Patar who beat the then chief minister Shibu Soren in 2009.

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 in the just-concluded Assembly elections. Jamshedpur (East) seat had been a stronghold of Raghubar Das who had been winning from here since 1995, while Roy had represented the adjoining Jamshedpur (West) seat for two terms.

This was for the first time in Jharkhand's history when a leader who served under a chief minister crossed swords with him in the polls. Roy held the Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs portfolios for the last five years in the BJP-led NDA government.

In January 2009, the then chief minister Shibu Soren was defeated in a by-poll for the Tamar Assembly seat by political novice Gopal Krishan Patar, alias Raja Peter, of the Jharkhand Party by a margin of over 9,000 votes.

Soren, who became chief minister in August, 2008 had to become a member of the legislature within six months of assuming the post. His defeat in the Tamar by-poll forced him to resign.

Patar, now in jail in connection with a murder case, contested from Tamar constituency as Nationalist Congress Party candidate this time and lost it.