Ranchi
Saturday saw a flurry of activities in the ruling and opposition camps in Jharkhand, and all interlinked to the Assembly elections scheduled later this year.
A day after his release from jail following grant of bail by the Jharkhand High Court in the alleged money laundering case linked to a land scam, former Jharkhand Chief Minister and JMM executive president Hemant Soren sought to galvanise party workers as he made a public appearance by garlanding the statue of tribal icon Birsa Munda.
Hemant also took the opportunity to espouse the cause of tribals, farmers and minorities. “After coming out of jail after 5 months, I have bowed down to Bhagwan Birsa Munda. The hurdles that he had to face, more or less Adivasi, farmers, and minorities are facing a similar fate, even today. ‘Manuvaadi’ ideas, even today are getting successes in its expansion. But, we haven’t accepted our defeat and moving ahead… Jharkhand is a land of valours, many will try to scare us, but that is momentary, we don’t need to be scared,” Hemant, flanked by his wife Kalpana, told media persons.
JMM MP Mahua Maji said, “Party workers are very happy and excited after the bail of our leader Hemant Soren. He is the most popular tribal leader in the country. We will win the upcoming elections and form the government again. Hemant Soren has worked extensively for the people of Jharkhand that we will stay in power for many more years to come.”
Espousing the tribal cause isn’t without reason. With 28 of the 81 Assembly seats in Jharkhand reserved for STs, tribals play a decisive role in the outcome of the Assembly polls.
In 2019, the JMM handed over the ruling BJP a drubbing in the ST seats by winning 25 of the 28 reserved seats, mainly owing to the adivasis’ resentment against the then Raghubar Das government’s bid to amend the Chotanagpur and Santhal Paragana Tenancy Acts.
This came just a few months after the BJP and its ally AJSU had won 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats, including four of the five parliamentary constituencies reserved for STs.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s ambitious target of winning all the 14 Lok Sabha seats from Jharkhand also failed miserably. In fact, the BJP lost all the five ST reserved seats with the JMM winning three seats and the Congress two of them. The BJP lost the ST seats here despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mega tribal outreach. But the party has been citing that it was ahead of the JMM-Congress combine in 52 Assembly segments.
It is these nine seats that BJP’s election co-in-charge and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma cited on Saturday after arriving in the State Capital to strategise for the Assembly elections. He also ruled out any impact of Hemant’s release on the polls.
The BJP won nine seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections when he was in jail, Sarma said adding “We will win more seats when he is out of jail”. He too spoke about tribal welfare being ‘top priority’ and the BJP’s focus on them. “The party’s priority is development of Jharkhand and the welfare of the scheduled tribe community here. There has been no government in the state for past five years. Atrocities on women and tribal people increased manifolds in the state in the past five years,” he asserted.
When BJP’s manifesto comes out, one can see how much work the party has planned for tribal people in the next five years, Sarma said. Asked about the bail granted to Hemant, he said, “The BJP does not keep accounts of who is going to jail and coming out on bail.”
Sarma also met former Jharkhand CM and former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda, JMM patriarch Shibu Soren’s eldest daughter-in-law Sita Soren, and State BJP leader Arun Oraon. While Munda lost from Khunti, Sita Soren, who quit JMM and resigned as an MLA and fought the Lok Sabha polls from Dumka on a BJP ticket, also could not win.
