At a time when Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s image has taken a hit because of a mining-lease controversy and a slew of public interest litigation (PIL) pleas filed against him, the Opposition BJP is trying to reassert itself among the state’s tribal communities that are crucial for any party’s success in the Assembly elections. The party is facing a crucial bypoll in Mandar, which is one of the state’s 28 tribal constituencies.
In the past month, the Opposition party’s attacks on Soren members have centred around the state’s tribal politics. On June 5, the party’s national president J P Nadda addressed a crowd comprising people from mostly tribal communities at a ground in Ranchi. Accompanying Nadda on the stage for the “Bhagwan Birsa Munda Vishwas Rally” were former CM Raghubar Das, former CM and Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda, and BJP’s Legislative Party Leader Babulal Marandi. The BJP leaders, despite their reported differences, stood together to send out the message that only their party was thinking about tribal welfare while the ruling coalition of Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Congress was “looting the Adivasis”.
State BJP president Deepak Prakash, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, on Tuesday said his party was continuously working to solve the problems of people from tribal communities. “This has led to an increase in the mass base of BJP,” he claimed. “The Congress has levelled allegations against us for violating the Model Code of Conduct by conducting Sunday’s event in Ranchi. However, they did not care to read earlier orders that have stated that MCC will apply only to Assembly constituencies.”
Last month, Prakash had said following a meeting of the BJP state working committee in Hazaribagh that the BJP would wage a struggle against the government. “The government formed on the slogan of ‘Jal, Jungle, Zameen’ is the foremost in looting it.”
On Monday, BJP Scheduled Tribe Morcha’s national president and MP Sameer Oraon said Soren stood exposed in front of Adivasis. “Adivasis have now understood that the government made their votes is just filling the coffers of Shibu Soren’s family members,” he added.
BJP National President JP Nadda pays floral tribute to Birsa Munda, in Ranchi. (PTI Photo)
Mandar bye-election
The BJP is seeking to consolidate its position among the Adivasi communities after its tally of Adivasi seats plummeted from 11 to two in the 2019 state election. Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM-P) won one constituency. The JMM won 19 of the 28 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs) while the Congress bagged six.
“This made a lot of difference as the tribal anger got reflected in the results. In 2014, the BJP and its then ally AJSU Party combined had won 13 tribal seats. In 2019, BJP won only two seats. Tribal votes have remained a key area to win elections in Jharkhand and that is why the party is hitting at the right time when Hemant Soren’s image has taken a hit,” said a BJP insider.
After the 2019 debacle, the Opposition party reinducted Marandi, the first BJP CM of the state. But Marandi has yet to get the Leader of the Opposition status as a state tribunal is still hearing a case on the merger of the JVM-P and the BJP. Apart from Marandi, the BJP has in its tanks Das, an Other Backward Class (OBC) leader originally from Chattisgarh, and Munda.
“Marandi was brought in the party fold for the BJP to reassert itself in the tribal community after it got dented during the time of Raghubar Das due to certain decisions,” said another source in the BJP. “However, due to two Covid-19 waves, the BJP did not get time to build that consensus…Interestingly, it was Ragubar Das who reignited the Opposition politics after making the information of Soren getting a mining lease public in February that is still creating troubles for the current CM … Irrespective of all that, Marandi remains the choice of the leadership to lead the state in case there is a powershift — at least for some years, by the virtue of him being a leader from the tribal community.”
The BJP’s first real test will come on June 23 in the Mandar by-election. The seat fell vacant after Congress MLA Bandhu Tirkey got disqualified following his conviction in a disproportionate assets (DA) case earlier this year. Tirkey’s daughter Shilpi Neha Tirkey, 32, will be up against the BJP’s Gangotri Kujur, 58, in the election.
At the Sunday rally, Nadda spoke of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “reform, perform, inform”. He later said: “… Hemant Soren and corruption have become synonymous … was shocked to see the mining lease in his name.”
Even though the Election Commission has yet to decide if Soren will face disqualification, the Opposition has been on the offensive against the ruling coalition on the matter.
A source in the ruling alliance said Soren’s image had received a “dent” but nothing that cannot be rebuilt. “Only thing that matters right now is what the High Court orders in the PILs that the court is hearing. If a CBI probe is ordered in any of the PIL, it is bound to upset the ruling dispensation. The BJP wants to reap during the weakest and it is making inroads in the minds of the tribal population.”
