Jamshedpur, May 14: The results of the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha poll have proved that the electorate of the constituency have by and large ignored candidates other than those of BJP and JMM.

While the victorious JMM candidate, Sunil Mahato, polled 3,96,056 votes, runner-up and BJP canidate Abha Mahato garnered 2,90,423 votes. But none of the other 14 candidates in the fray could even cross the 20,000 mark. The total votes polled by these 14 candidates stood at 90,040.

Samajwadi Party nominee Onkar Nath Jaiswal managed to secure the highest number of votes among these 14 nominees — 17,409 votes. The lowest votes was polled by Amra Bengali nominee Hemento Singh, who garnered just 2,098 votes.

Poll observers are of the view that this time the voters have reposed their faith in JMM or BJP. “Unlike earlier elections in the constituency, the electorate of the Jamshedpur parliamentary constituency preferred not to vote for any candidate who was not a serious contender.

“That is the reason why even leaders like Jharkhand People’s Party (JPP) candidate Surya Singh Besra, who has considerable influence in Assembly segments of Ghatshila and Pokta, managed as little as just 11,000 votes in this election,” said a poll observer. Besra finished fourth after Jaiswal this time.

“We have to analyse the reasons why our traditional voters did not vote for us in the election. Perhaps they did not want to waste their votes or they may have been lured by other parties by unfair means,” said Besra.

Although Abha Mahto secured over 5,000 votes more this time as compared to the 1999 elections, she lost the elections. The BJP think-tank attributes two reasons for this.

“Firstly, polling in the urban areas was low compared to the rural areas. While in urban areas the figure stood at 50 per cent, it was about 55 per cent in rural areas. Since JMM has a stronger base in the rural parts, it managed to defeat the BJP,” said a BJP leader.

Moreover, when the non-NDA parties struck an alliance for the poll, the BJP think-tank in the district had assumed that the traditional voters of Congress, RJD and the Left based in urban areas would end up voting for BJP instead of JMM since urban voters do not like JMM.

“But that did not happen, as there was complete polarisation of the votes of these parties in favour of JMM. When the results of the Jamshedpur East and Jamshedpur West Assembly segments — the two urban segments of the constituency — were made known to us, we knew that our defeat was certain” said a BJP leader.