Madhu Koda loses, wife Geeta retains Jagannathpur seat

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda on Tuesday lost the elections from Majhgaon (ST) seat to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha candidate Niral Purty by over 10,000 votes.

His wife and party candidate Geeta Koda, however, retained the Jagannathpur seat, defeating BJP's Mangal Singh Soren by a margin of 24,611 votes. Koda, who had been representing Jagannathpur constituency since 2000, won the assembly seat again in 2005 and went on to be the chief minister of the tribal state the next year. He was pulled down by JMM after being in power for 23 months.

He has been chargesheeted by the CBI in coal block allocation scam. He had fought on a BJP ticket in 2000 and in 2005 as Independent from Jagannathpur. He formed Jai Bharat Samanta Party and nominated his wife Gita from the seat in 2009 as he was an MP then and was battling corruption charges, for which he had been in judicial custody for nearly four years before being released on bail.