Barhait Election Result 2019 LIVE Updates | Jharkhand Assembly Elections; Constituency, Party, Candidate Name Wise Winner, Loser, Leading, Trailing

Barhait Assembly Election 2019 | The Barhait Assembly seat, reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST) lies in the Rajmahal Assembly constituency of Sahebganj district of Jharkhand. The Barhait Assembly constituency will go to polls on 20 December, in phase five of the Assembly elections. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has held the seat since 2005 and has fielded Hemant Soren from the seat.

Representational image. AFP

Demography: The Barhait Assembly constituency lies in the Sahebganj district, which has 26.80 percent tribal population, according to the 2011 Census. The district also performs poorly on other socio-economic indicators. With a sex ratio of 952, it ranks 15th in the state while the percentage of Below Poverty Line (BPL) households in rural areas of the district is 86.03 percent.

The district lies in the Santhal Pargana division and is home to the Santhals, who reside in the plains and the Pahariyas of the Rajmahal hills. The district comprises of nine blocks, namely, Sahebganj, Mandro, Borio, Barhait, Taljhari, Rajmahal, Udhwa, Pathna and Barharwa. As per Census 2011, the district has 1,349 villages and eight towns distributed in three Assembly constituencies.

Following is a brief description of the Assembly constituency:

Constituency number: 3

Total electors: 1,95,391

Male: 98,555

Female: 96,835

Transgender: 1

Voter turnout in last Assembly Election: 72%

Polling stations: 223

Major parties in the fray: JMM, BJP, AJSU, JVM(P), BSP, TMC

The constituency  is currently represented by Hemant Soren, son of JMM leader Shibu Soren and the chief ministerial candidate of the Opposition alliance consisting of the JMM, Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). In the 2014 elections, Hemant defeated turncoat candidate Hemlal Murmu, who was contesting on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. In 2009, contesting on a JMM ticket, Murmu had polled double the number of votes received by Independent candidate Vijay Hansdak. In 2005, JMM's Thomas Soren had defeated BJP's Simon Malto by over 13,7oo votes.

This year, Hemant is fighting the poll battle against Malto, AJSU's Gamliyel Hembrom and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) candidate Hopnat Tudu. The other candidates in the fray are Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Baidhnath Pahadiya, Lok Jan Shakti Party's (LJP) Samuel Kumar Maraiya and TMC's Sheel Tudu, apart from a few Independent candidates.

The election is crucial for the Hemant, who lost  JMM stronghold Dumka to BJP's Louis Marandi in 2014. In the 2019 General Election, the Dumka Lok Sabha seat was also lost to the BJP’s Sunil Soren, who defeated Shibu Soren by over 47,000 voters.

Sixteen Assembly constituencies are set to vote in the last phase of polling on 20 December. The counting of votes for the five-phase Assembly elections will take place on the 23 December.

The state is currently ruled by the BJP (37 Assembly seats) in alliance with the All Jharkhand Students' Union (AJSU) (5 Assembly seats). However, the BJP is seeking to come to power on its own after NDA allies, including Janata Dal-United (JDU) and AJSU decided to part ways with the saffron party.

The saffron party faces tough contest from the Opposition alliance consisting of the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and JMM. JMM is contesting on 43 seats, the Congress on 31 and the RJD on seven seats in the 81-seat Assembly.