JMM-Cong sweep J'khand polls, BJP loses 5th state in 12 months

Aditi Tandon

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 23

The JMM-Congress-RJD alliance today stormed to power in Jharkhand with the incumbent BJP losing the fifth state in twelve months.The JMM with 30 seats (when leads last came in) emerged the single largest party. The BJP with 25 seats fell behind the single largest party mark for the first time since the state was formed in 2000.

The comprehensiveness of BJP’s defeat in the mineral-rich state was evident from CM Rahgubar Das’ humiliating loss to rebel Saryu Das in Jamshedpur East by over 10,000 votes. JMM working president Hemant Soren, who is set to become the seventh Chief Minister of Jharkhand, thanked the people for the decisive mandate.

“I am grateful to the people of the state. A new chapter will now begin in the governance of Jharkhand,” he said, adding that alliance partners would meet soon to finalise nuances of government formation.

The BJP, despite the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, a favourable court order on Ram Mandir and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, slipped several notches from its 2014 poll position in Jharkhand when it had won 37 seats and its ally All-Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) five.

The JMM was today’s top gainer with 30 seats, having won only 19 in the last Assembly elections. The Congress made reasonable inroads, garnering 16 seats as against six in the previous elections.The RJD, which drew a blank in 2014, won one seat. A clear takeaway from the results was the mechanics of alliance arithmetic.

While the BJP paid the price of splitting with the AJSU besides bearing the consequences of allies LJP and JDU going it alone, the Congress benefited from stitching an alliance with the JMM and the RJD, unhesitatingly naming Soren the CM-candidate. The Congress had contested alone in 2014 and won just six seats. In a course correction, the party agreed to contest on lesser seats than the JMM this time. While the Congress contested 31 of 81 seats, the JMM fought on 43, winning 30.

Including Jharkhand, the Congress is now in power in Punjab, Puducherry, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The pattern of BJP’s poll decline began with the loss in three Hindi heartland states last December when the Congress dethroned the incumbents in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

The Grand Old Party struck an ideological compromise with the Shiv Sena to keep the BJP away in Maharashtra and formed a formidable pact with the JMM to win Jharkhand. Haryana is the only state the BJP has retained with help from ally JJP.

The trend of BJP’s vote share falling in comparison to the General Election remains consistent with the party plummeting from a vote share of 55 per cent in Jharkhand in the May Lok Sabha polls to 33.60 per cent today. The Jharkhand outcome makes the upcoming Delhi and Bihar elections tougher for the BJP with the Opposition finding its Mojo back in formidable anti-BJP alliances as struck in Maharashtra and now Jharkhand. The Congress, which mostly contested urban seats in Jharkhand, managed a 50 per cent strike rate.

Congress veteran P Chidambaram remarked: “Dented in Haryana, denied in Maharashtra, defeated in Jharkhand… That is the story of the BJP in 2019. All non-BJP parties must raise their sights and rally around the Congress to save the Constitution of India.”

While the BJP continued to pay a price for miscalculation on the caste front — it was largely rejected by the Jats in Haryana, Marathas in Maharashtra and tribals in Jharkhand — the Congress got the equations right by playing second fiddle to a regional player in Jharkhand which has 26 per cent tribal vote.

Also, the JMM-Congress kept the focus on fundamental issues concerning people’s lives, sweeping seats which went to the polls in the fifth and sixth phases. “These were the phases in which PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah spoke categorically of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register for Citizens. The PM made his infamous —you can tell the protesters from their clothes remark – also during these two phases, which we swept. We spoke of declining economy, job loss, neglect of tribals, corruption and people understood what we were saying,” AICC in-charge of Jharkhand RPN Singh said.