JMM-led alliance looks set for comfortable majority in

The JMM-led alliance appeared on course to win a majority in the 81-member Jharkhand assembly on Monday, while the ruling BJP looked set for defeat, the latest results and trends of the counting of votes available on the Election Commission website indicated.

The JMM has won four seats and is leading in 25 others, while its alliance partner Congress has clinched 3 and is ahead in 12 more. Another alliance constituent Lalu Prasad's RJD is leading in one.

The BJP, which ploughed a lonely furrow in the elections, has won four seats and its candidates are leading in 22 places.

If the results and current trends hold, the JMM- Congress-RJD coalition will end up bagging 45 seats, four more than required for a simple majority.

The AJSU Party, a long-standing ally of the BJP which parted ways with the saffron party just before the polls, has won one seat and its nominees are leading in two others.

The JVM(P) of former chief minister Babulal Marandi is leading in three constituencies, CPI-ML (Liberation) and NCP (one each) and Independents (two).

"It is not BJPs defeat, it is my defeat," Chief Minister Raghubar Das, who was trailing BJP rebel Saryu Roy in Jamshedpur (East) by a margin of over 10,000 votes, told a press conference here. Roy contested the poll from the seat, held by Das five times, as an Independent after being denied ticket from Jamshedpur (West).

Even while the counting was on and only 12 results were declared, Hemant Soren, the opposition alliance's chief ministerial candidate, held a press conference where he thanked the people of the state for a "decisive victory".

"The people of Jharkhand have given a clear majority to the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance. A new chapter begins, which will prove a milestone, Soren, the working president of JMM, said.

The BJP's likely defeat in Rajasthan will be a big blow for the party, which failed to gain a simple majority in Haryana and whose government had to make an embarrassing exit just three days after being sworn-in in Maharashtra after long-standing ally Shiv Sena joined forces with the Congress and the NCP to form government.

Assembly elections in all these states were held after the BJP's resounding triumph in the Lok Sabha polls in the middle of the year.