Odds stacked against BJP in Jharkhand

Nalin Verma

Senior journalist and Author

Heavy odds appear to be stacked against the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Jharkhand. The Assembly elections for its 81-member House are in the last leg of the five-phase polling ending on December 20.

The BJP had secured 37 seats in 2014. Its alliance partner then, the All-India Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), had won five seats. The saffron party, with the support of the AJSU, had just crossed the threshold of the majority number and made party leader Raghubar Das the Chief Minister. Das fortified his position by splitting Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Party (JVM) — six of the eight winners on the JVM ticket had crossed the floor, adding muscle to his government in 2014.

The BJP was also carrying the momentum that Narendra Modi had provided to it by securing the majority for his party on its own at the Centre — barely six months earlier in May 2014 — and getting saddled as the Prime Minister of India. It is hard to say if Modi has lost his ‘charisma’ in Jharkhand or not, but Das’s boat appears to be shuddering in the turbulent waters of the Subarnarekha river.

That the electorate lacks enthusiasm for this election is evident from the fact that 62.54 per cent of the voters turned up to vote in the fourth phase of polling on December 16 against 64.99 per cent turning up in the same region during the Lok Sabha elections in May this year. In fact, the voting percentage has, by and large, gone down in the Assembly elections in comparison to the Lok Sabha elections by 1.5 to 2 per cent in almost all three previous phases.

Observers at the ground level attribute multiple reasons for the BJP lacking the wherewithal to repeat its 2014 performance. The first and foremost reason is stated to be the alienation of the adivasis (tribals) — who constitute 26 per cent of the Jharkhand voters — from Raghubar Das, the first non-tribal CM and also an ‘outsider’ who originally hails from Rajnandgaon in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh.

But more than his origin and belonging to what is known as the Other Backward Class (OBC) in the lexicon of the social categorisation, Das’s actions have fuelled unrest among the adivasis.

Mohammad Sajjad, professor of history at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), who along with a law scholar, Zeeshan Ahmad, wrote research articles recently on the politics and ethnography of Jharkhand, said, “It is not religion but ethnicity that dominates Jharkhand’s social sphere. Also, during Das’s five-year term, the adivasis have found several other reasons to despair with the party ruling the state, other than the Chief Minister’s origins and identity. Among wide sections of tribal groups, the perception has set in that a corporate-BJP nexus is stridently depriving, displacing and marginalising them. The reason is that in November 2016, the BJP-led coalition, which had garnered over 34 per cent of the vote share, tried to amend the longstanding tenancy laws governing the state: the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act of 1949. There were massive public demonstrations by adivasis following which the proposed amendment was aborted. But the BJP moved another amendment in the Jharkhand Assembly the same year. This was to change the Centrally-legislated Land Acquisition (Jharkhand Amendment) Act. Section 10A of the amended Act exempts the government from four critical responsibilities: one, developing infrastructure projects, including schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and so on; two, conducting social impact assessment during land acquisition; three, seeking consent of the affected people, and four, ensuring food security.

Thus, Professor Sajjad said the very purpose of enacting the Land Acquisition Act — to provide fair compensation for those who lose their land to public projects — was defeated.

In fact, the top BJP leadership — riding on the wave of 2014 General Elections — had virtually foisted Raghubar Das as the CM of Jharkhand. The party had never given a hint during the campaign that it would anoint Das as CM. Das, apparently, had no backing from local MLAs or allies, but was the ‘preference’ of the BJP high command. And his actions — perceived to be anti-adivasi — appear to have queered his pitch.

Moreover, the BJP had successfully struck an alliance with the AJSU — the party led by Sudesh Mahto, a Kurmi identified with Kurmi-Mahto votes in Jharkhand. This time around, the AJSU is contesting on its own, threatening to split the Kurmi-Mahto votes which had largely supported the BJP-led alliance in 2014.

While the saffron party has failed to keep its alliance partner AJSU, it is also suffering from a vicious division in its own rank. The party stalwart and ‘anti-corruption crusader’, Saryu Rai — who was parliamentary affairs and food and civil supplies minister in Das cabinet — has rebelled, jumping in the fray against the Chief Minister from the Jamshedpur East seat. It is the counting on December 23 that will decide who actually wins the Jamshedpur East seat, but Saryu Rai kept Das tied in his constituency all through the elections. Saryu Rai came to fame by fighting a legal battle against former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad and former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda on the issue of corruption and levelled similar charges of corruption against Raghubar Das too. Das succeeded in denying the party ticket to Saryu, but it will be interesting to see if he beats Saryu in the electoral battle.

Ranchi-based political analyst Umapad Mahto said, “It is a foregone conclusion that the BJP will not be able to repeat its 2014 tally and the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition will surely do better in comparison to 2014. It will be a miracle if Raghubar Das stages a comeback as the CM.”

Mahto might not be wide off the mark, given the poll history of Jharkhand. The state, which was carved out in November 2000 from Bihar, has never given full majority to any party or even a coalition in the 19 years of its existence. It is the post-poll equations that have, usually, determined the formation of the government in Jharkhand that is divided in five linguistic and demographic zones — North Chhotanagpur (25 seats), South Chhotanagpur (15 seats), Santhal Pargana (18 seats), Kolhan (14 seats) and Palamau (nine seats). Only 16 seats — all falling in the Santhal Pargana zone — are left for polling on December 20. Polling has been concluded on as many as 65 out of 81 Jharkhand seats.

All these five linguistic and demographic zones have their sub-regional variations and diversities, making it impossible to throw up a uniform electoral result. Given the feedback from the ground, it appears that Jharkhand, in all likelihood, is going to throw a Maharashtra-like scenario in which the formation of the government will depend on the manoeuvring capability of the competing parties — BJP and JMM-led alliance.