Jharkhand polls: Babulal Marandi maintains strong lead in Dhanwar

JVM (P) chief Babulal Marandi is leading from Dhanwar Assembly constituency by over 10,000 votes, according to the Election Commission (EC) trends.

The former Jharkhand chief minister is pitted against Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Nijamuddin Ansari, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)'s Raj Kumar Yadav and BJP's Laxman Prasad Singh.

Marandi has received 13,003 votes while Yadav who is trailing has 2,498 votes till 12:30 pm and the counting of votes is underway.

Earlier in the day, Marandi told ANI that the assembly election results are not as per their expectations.

The JVM chief was the Member of Parliament in 12th, 13th 14th and 15th Lok Sabha from Jharkhand. He was the MoS for Forests and Environment in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government from 1998 to 2000.

As per EC's party-wise trends, BJP is leading on 29 seats, while the Congress-JMM-RJD alliance is leading on 42. AJSU and JVM have two and five seats respectively.

Polling on 81 Assembly seats in Jharkhand was held in five phases from November 30 to December 20.

The tenure of the current Assembly ends on January 5, 2020. This is the fourth Assembly election in Jharkhand since the state was carved out of Bihar in 2000.