Dhanbad, Dec 23 (IANS): Bharatiya Janata Party's Aparna Sengupta took a lead in the Left bastion Nirsa in Jharkhand assembly by 15,429 votes over Marxist Coordination Committee's Arup Chatterjee.

Chatterjee, a senior party leader, had won the 2014 assembly election from Nirsa, known as the coal belt of India, by only 1,035 votes. The Nirsa assembly constituency in Dhanbad is considered an MCC stronghold, where the party has never lost since 1990, except once in 2004.

The veteran leader late Gurudas Chatterjee won continuously from 1990 before being assassinated in the year 2000. Since then, his son Arup Chatterjee has represented the seat.

Only in the 2004 assembly election did Arup lose to Forward Bloc candidate Aparna Sengupta, wife of slain All India Forward Bloc leader Sushanta Sengupta.

Aparna in 2015 left All India Forward Bloc to join the BJP. Before her, Binay Singh was the BJP face in Nirsa and had been working for the party for two decades.