Ranchi, Dec 23 (IANS): Congress's Jharkhand unit president Rameshwar Oraon has taken lead of thousands of votes from his nearest BJP rival and former Congress state chief Sukhdeo Bhagat from Lohardaga constituency.

Oraon is leading by over 14,000 votes from Lohardaga Assembly seat. He secured 31,954 votes against his nearest rival BJP's Sukhdeo Bhagat who has secured 17,879 votes.

The Lohardaga Assembly, which voted on November 30 in the first of the five-phase Jharkhand Assembly elections for 81 seats, is located in the Lohardaga district of South Jharkhand region and falls under the Lohardaga Parliamentary constituency.

In the 2014 Jharkhand Assembly election, Kamal Kishor Bhagat of the All Jharkhand Students' Union (AJSU) had won from the Lohardaga Assembly seat which is a semi-urban (Scheduled Tribes) constituency with an estimated Scheduled Caste population of 5.99 per cent and a Scheduled Tribe population of 56.95 per cent.

The estimated literacy level of the district in which this constituency falls in is 68.29 per cent. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP's Sudarshan Bhagat won from Lohardaga Parliament seat.