Ranchi, Dec 23 (IANS) Only one of the six former Maoist rebels who contested the five-phased Jharkhand assembly polls Nov 25-Dec 18 managed to pull off a victory.
Polush Surin, a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) nominee from Torpa, won the election by defeating Bharatiya Janata Party’s Koche Munda by over 16,000 votes.

Surin, currently in jail, was a member of the Leftist radical group - the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI).

The five others — Ugal Pal, Satish Kumar, Masi Charan Munda, Kuldeep Ganjhu and Ranjan Yadav — all lost their respective electoral battles.

While Kumar and Munda were formerly associated with the PLFI, the remaining three were members of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist. All except Kumar are in jail.

Pal was defeated by Congress nominee Chandrashekhar Dubey. Kumar lost to Krishnanand Tripathy of Congress and Munda was defeated by BJP nominee Nilkanth Singh Munda.

Ganju, an All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) nominee, was defeated by Jai Prakash Singh Bhokta of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P).

Rashtriya Janata Dal nominee Yadav was defeated by independent nominee Videsh Singh.

Except Charan all were on fourth or fifth positions in their respective constituencies. Charan lost by just 600 votes.