Jharkhand win proves clear leadership can counter BJP's organisational strength

When Hemant Soren was arrested in January on allegations of land fraud, his political future looked uncertain. After all, no tribal chief minister of Jharkhand had completed a full tenure. However, five months later, the 49-year-old emerged from Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Jail a transformed man. Sporting a thick, greying beard and long hair, he bore a striking resemblance to his father, Shibu Soren, the patriarch of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. The look gave him gravitas and public sympathy, reaffirming the feeling that imprisoning popular leaders often strengthen their appeal.

After getting bail in July, Soren used his time well, addressing more than 100 rallies even as the BJP carpet-bombed Jharkhand with rallies from its top leaders and chief ministers. The presence of his wife, Kalpana, who had made an impressive electoral debut in a bypoll in May, gave Soren an additional boost. The results of the assembly polls in November cemented his image as a strong tribal leader.

Soren secured a historic second term, becoming the longest-serving chief minister of the mineral-rich state since its formation in 2000. The JMM-led alliance surpassed its 2019 performance, winning 56―the JMM won 34, the Congress 16, the Rashtriya Janata Dal four and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) two―of the 81 seats.

The saving grace for the BJP was that it retained its voting percentage of more than 33 per cent despite the number of seats dropping from 25 to 21. Its allies―the AJSU Party, the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas)―won one seat each.

“People expressed faith in our policies despite moves to disturb it as even our chief minister went to jail for five months,” said JMM Lok Sabha MP Vijay Hansdak. “Our population may not be aggressive, but they have shown what they think. Progress was never an issue; the other side raked up polarising issues like caste as they could not counter us because our schemes were reaching the grassroots.”

The most striking takeaway from the Jharkhand elections was the rejection of the BJP’s aggressive tribal outreach. Its campaign, centred on the polarising “Bangladeshi infiltrators” narrative, failed to resonate. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the BJP’s election co-in-charge, repeatedly highlighted demographic changes purportedly caused by illegal migration, but the strategy did not find traction with the tribal electorate which constitute over 26 per cent of state’s population.

Last time, the BJP had won four seats in the Santhal Pargana area, which borders West Bengal. Many of the adivasis had sold their land to Muslims from neighbouring areas, which led to charges of demographic change. Muslims constitute over 14 per cent of the state’s population.

The BJP, which had won 11 of the 28 seats reserved for the scheduled tribes in 2014, when, for the first time, the state had given a clear mandate, was reduced to just one seat. Even that seat was won by JMM turncoat and former chief minister Champai Soren.

Hansdak argued that the BJP started raising this issue after its loss in the Lok Sabha polls. “They have two datas,” he said. “At the national level, they say there has been no infiltration, but here in the state they claim something else. If infiltration is happening, it is there responsibility. They are only trying to scare people. They have been in power the longest in the state, for over 16 years. But how has illegal migration happened in last five years. It is their strategy to divide people.”

Such has been the tribal angst since the BJP picked a non-tribal, Raghubar Das, as the chief minister in 2014 that the party’s efforts to win over the community has not yielded results in the face of the fight put by the Sorens. The party could not win any of the ST seats in Lok Sabha polls, despite the BJP-led NDA government’s outreach, including picking a tribal as president and the celebration of tribal icon Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary. Even the choice of Babulal Marandi, tribal leader and the state’s first chief minister, as party president and prospective chief ministerial face failed to click. The BJP’s state spokesperson Shivpujan Pathak said the JMM got sympathy for the arrest. “Moreover, they won over voters through promise of schemes for women and used money power to win over voters,” he said, adding that BJP ally Sudesh Mahato’s AJSU also failed to get seats. Most of the BJP seats have come from urban areas. Sudesh’s chances were marred by the dramatic rise of another OBC leader, Jairam Mahato, a 29-year-old PhD student who floated his own Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha. The three-month-old party got over 10 lakh votes in 71 seats with over six per cent vote share―fourth largest after the BJP, the JMM and the Congress. Jairam managed to win only his seat, but his party dented the voteshare of the BJP and the AJSU. The AJSU's vote share dropped by more than half from over 8 per cent in 2019.

Another big contributing factor were the women voters. The JMM government, under the Mukhyamantri Maiyan Samman Yojana, gave Rs1,000 every month to the women between the age of 18 to 50. The BJP promised Rs2,100 every month to them. To counter the BJP’s offer, Soren increased the assistance to Rs2,500.

The state staying with the ruling alliance has given INDIA hope that with a clear leadership, it can stall the BJP’s aggressive outreach and superior organisational strength.

However, the JMM fears that the BJP may try to curtail the reserved seats in the delimitation exercise after the census is done in 2025.

“Whatever may have been the results, the issues remain, be it corruption, the issue of illegal Bangladeshi migrants,” said Pathak. “We will continue to raise them in the state.”

If this election confirmed Hemant Soren as a regional powerhouse, it also witnessed the rise of Kalpana, who retained the Gandey seat she had won in May.