Jharkhand Election Results 2019: Early trends give edge to JMM-Congress-RJD alliance

Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Hemand Soren (right) | Image: Twitter/@ANI

The Congress-JMM-RJD combine has crossed the halfway mark in the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, initial trends have shown.

On the one hand, the alliance has bagged 41 seats, with the Congress getting 12, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) winning 24 and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) getting five seats, as per early trends.

On the other hand, trends show that the BJP will get 29 seats, eight less than their previous tally of 37. Outgoing chief minister Raghubar Das is leading from Jamshedpur East with a wafer-thin margin of over 300 seats.

Meanwhile JMM working president Hemant Soren is trailing in Dumka, and leading from Barhait by 664 votes.

Congress sources have told CNN-News18 that the Opposition's pre-poll alliance must constitutionally get the first offer to form the government in Jharkhand.

"Congress-JMM has pre-poll alliance, so we should have the first stake to form a government. The Congress is in touch with three independent candidates as well as Babulal Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM). We aren't very hopeful of Saryu Roy's support as he could go with the BJP," the source said.

Marandi has told the news channel that the JMM-Congress-RJD combine "will need us to form the government".