Ranchi Municipal Corporation Mayor Race: Rama Khalkho Takes Lead After Third Round Counting

Ranchi: Congress-backed Rama Khalkho surged ahead of BJP-backed candidate Roshni Khalkho after the third round of counting in the Ranchi Municipal Corporation mayoral race on Friday evening.

After the third round, Rama had secured 38,689 votes, while Roshni polled 37,247 votes. JMM-backed candidate Sujeet Vijay Anand Kujur garnered 5,171 votes.


In the second round, Roshni maintained her lead, but the trend reversed in the third round, with Rama overtaking Roshni to move ahead.

According to the data shared by the state election commission, Roshni bagged 40,208 votes, while Rama secured 29,635 votes in the second round. In the first round too, Roshni led the race by over 13,500 votes, bagging 44,574 votes. Rama managed to secure 31,063 votes.

Kujur managed to remain in third position, bagging a meagre 3,887 votes in the second round of counting and 4,552 in first round. Although the civic body polls in the state were officially non-partisan, most candidates contested the elections with strong backing from major political parties. A total of 11 candidates were in the running for the coveted RMC mayoral post. Voting for the total 1,087 wards in 48 urban local bodies (ULBs) across the state was held on Feb 23. A total of 562 candidates were in the mayoral race, while 5,562 candidates contested for the ward councillors’ posts. Out of the 48 ULBs, 9 are municipal corporations, 20 are municipal councils, and 19 are nagar parishads. In RMC, with a total of 1,027,791 eligible voters across its 53 wards — 518,762 male, 508,973 female, and 56 third gender voters — 43.43% of voters exercised their franchise on Feb 23.

In the Bundu Nagar Panchayat, 74.07% of voters exercised their franchise. The civic body has 16,625 male voters and 8,168 female voters.