Ramgarh, Feb. 23 :    Ramgarh, Feb. 23:  Jharkhand chief minister Babulal Marandi today clinched the Ramgarh Assembly seat, defeating his CPI rival by a margin of 19,918 votes. Bypoll in Ramgarh - necessitated by the death of sitting CPI legislator Sabir Ahmad Quereshi last year - was held on Monday. While Marandi polled a staggering 55,884 votes, his CPI rival Nadira Begum, widow of Quereshi, came second with 35,966 votes. JMM candidate Arjun Ram polled 32,584 votes to secure the third spot, while Congress candidate Yamuna Prasad Sharma secured a meagre 3,576 votes, forfeiting his security deposit. The presence of chief minister Marandi tipped the scales heavily in favour of the BJP which managed to secure only the third spot with 28,442 votes - behind the CPI and the JMM - in the 2000 Bihar Assembly elections. Though the JMM candidate polled 2,500 votes more than the last elections, it had to settle for the third spot. A totally disunited Opposition, which failed to set up a consensus candidate, ensured an easy win for the Jharkhand chief minister, poll observers here said. They said the 'disillusioned' people of Ramgarh can now hope that the victory of chief minister Marandi will usher in some development to this neglected constituency. The election of the Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha from Hazaribagh Lok Sabha seat for two successive terms have so far failed to bring in the much needed improvement in basic infrastructure which are practically non-existent in Ramgarh. Though work on the water distribution system at Garhbandh in Ramgarh began in 1982, the project is still to be completed. Already Rs. 10 crore have been invested, sources said. At present, the Garhbandh dam barely manages to supply water to 15 per cent of Ramgarh's residents, while the vast majority still depends on deep tubewells for drinking water. Even in the areas covered by the pipe water scheme, local residents complained that the supply pipes are jammed or broken in many places, rendering the water unsuitable and unhygienic for drinking. With the cantonment board reeling under a severe cash crunch and failing to cope with the increasing pressure of population, drainage outlets in most of Ramgarh are either non-existent or clogged, sources said. Plying of vehicles along National Highway 23 which links Dhanbad to Ramgarh is fraught with danger as the road is poorly maintained. The authorities responsible for the maintenance of the highway are based in Dhanbad, so nobody bothers to repair this important highway which links Ramgarh to the Grand Trunk Road, the sources added. The constituency has no government hospital and the private nursing homes have acquired the dubious reputation of fleecing the sick, the sources said. More than 70 per cent of smallscale industries in Ramgarh have been declared sick or have shut down. Two units of the state-owned Bharat Refractories Limited and two major private sector units - Bihar Alloy and Indo-Asahi Glass Co. - have been declared sick, the sources added.