Why the BJP failed to make a mark among the tribals of Jharkhand
In Jharkhand's polls, the NDA's seats dropped from 51 to 24, as the JMM-led INDIA bloc won 56, aided by effective campaigning and tribal-Muslim unity.
In Lok Sabha polls results announced on June 3, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was ahead of the JMM-led INDIA block in 51 assembly seats. Five months later, the NDA was reduced to 24 seats with the INDIA bloc winning 56 seats.
The key difference between the two polls was the BJP’s campaign narrative — which was that infiltration of Muslims was changing the demography of Jharkhand’s tribal areas and that Muslims were marrying tribal women to take over their land.
According to the 2011 census, tribals constitute 26.2% of the state’s population and Muslims 14.52%. Most of the tribal dominated assembly areas are also inhabited by Muslims, making the two communities a crucial votebank. According to political parties, tribals and Muslims hold sway in almost half of the 81 assembly seats in the state, especially in Santhal Pargana, Kolhan and south Chhotanagpur regions.
The JMM leaders attributed the BJP’s aggressive “infiltration” campaign to put a wedge in tribal-Muslim unity as a reason for the alliance bettering its performance as compared to 2019.
The Hemant Soren-led alliance won 27 of the 28 assembly seats reserved for tribals as compared to 25 in 2019. The BJP won only one ST reserved seat and that was of former chief minister and JMM leader, Champai Soren, who joined the party in August. In 2019, the 69-year-old tribal leader had won the Seraikella seat on a JMM ticket.
In the 2019 polls, the BJP could win only two seats reserved for ST down from 11 in 2014. And the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) won one seat. The JMM and its ally the Congress bagged 19 and six seats respectively. The JMM snatched Torpa and Khunti from the BJP. The BJP has lost Khunti for the first time since the creation of Jharkhand in 2000.
Political activists in Jharkhand said the tribals moved away from the BJP when it tried to amend the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act, 1949 and Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, to create a land bank in 2018 when Raghubar Das was the state’s chief minister.
There were widespread protests, and with the former Ragubar Das government initiating sedition charges against hundreds of tribals, the JMM had made it a major poll issue. Das is now governor of Odisha and his daughter-in-law, Purnima Sahu, won from his traditional assembly seat of Jamshedpur East.
So, what didn’t click for the saffron camp this time despite the JMM suffering from anti-incumbency and a section of the people expressing their frustration over lack of development and joblessness under the present regime?
Experts believe that one of the many factors was the failure of the BJP to project a chief minister’s face even as the JMM was clear on this from the very first day. “People could not see any match in the BJP to Hemant Soren. People were not sure whether the BJP will make state president Babulal Marandi its chief minister,” said Sudhir Pal of Jharkhand election watch, an NGO. Marandi was the state’s first chief minister when the BJP came to power in 2000 but was replaced within two years with Arjun Munda.
Pal also said that the BJP failed to counter the sympathy generated for Soren after his jail stint this year.
“The BJP is going all out to turn the tables in their favour. They have stooped to such levels that they even sent me to jail. But today again I am blocking their oath like a mountain,” Soren had said in Santhali language while addressing a public rally at Gando in Dumka district during the campaigning period.
Political observers also said that even though the BJP promised direct money transfer of ₹2,100 to every woman in the state to counter Soren’s Maiya Samman Yojana, which provides ₹1,000 per month to women, it failed to build a narrative on it.
“It appeared that the JMM was ready with a plan for every pitch the BJP made in elections from infiltration to development. The sympathy of Soren and infiltration rhetoric resulted in heavy polling in tribal and Muslim dominated areas. The JMM projected Maiya Samman Yojna and Abua Awas Yojna to counter BJP’s development plank. The BJP had no answer to Kalpana Soren’s popularity,” Pal said.
