The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Jharkhand faced embarrassment on Thursday when their candidate S S Ahluwalia lost the Rajya Sabha elections, which was held afresh after being countermanded earlier as the Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bagged the two seats.
The Congress's Pradip Kumar Balmuchu, the party state president won with the highest number of 25 votes, while JMM's Sanjeev Kumar secured 23 votes.
Ahluwalia finished third with 20 votes -- 18 of its own and two from the Janata Dal (United).
Balmuchu received 13 votes of his own party, five from the Rashtriya Janata Dal and seven from independents, including two Chamra Linda and Bidesh Singh who supported the BJP-JMM coalition government, but voted for the Congress.
The JMM candidate received 18 of its own votes and five from the Ajsu, a coalition partner of the government.
A total of 68 votes were polled in the 82-member house. Eleven members of Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantric) and the lone MLA of CPI(ML-Liberation) abstained from voting.
There is a nominated member and another seat is vacant. The Election Commission had countermanded the Rajya Sabha elections in the state on March 30 after seizure of Rs 2.15 crore in cash from a car owned by the brother of independent candidate R K Agarwal.
