A self-inflicted wound
Power Politics Bureau
Modi’s BJP has been
voted out in
Jharkhand. And
the Sonia-Rahul
Congress has
returned into
reckoning as a junior partner of the
mighty JMM.
Only six-months ago, the electorate
in Jharkhand, like the people of
Haryana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,
had voted for Narendra Damodardas
Modi. Now, like them, the
Jharkhand people have shown no
preference to the Hindu Hrudaya
Samrat, and his local saffron siblings.
Clearly, Modi was not a big factor in
these state assembly elections. Wisely,
he had preferred to take a back seat
particularly in the Jharkhand campaign
though his satraps, notably Amit Shah,
Smriti Irani and Yogi Adityanath made
his shadow loom large on the state. As
the result shows (47 seats for new
alliance: JMM -30; Congress-16; RJD–
One,while 25 seats for the BJP in the
81-member assembly) the voters gave
their thumbs down to Raghubar Das,
the man in the hot seat. His image
remained of a rude politician, who is
inaccessible to his own cadre.
Social media did no less damage to
his image going viral with videos
showing Raghubar Das yelling at
commoners and officials on many
occasions in the past five years. One
videos showed a gaffe where
Raghubar Das was heard saying
"Jharkhand will be the first adivasimukt state"
Hemant Soren with Rahul Gandhi
Jharkhand was created as a tribal
state in 2000 after a very long agitation
by leaders like Shibu Soren, father of
the new chief minister Hemant Soren.
In the last assembly round (2014), the
BJP-led alliance had won 13 out of 28
assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates. Even in the Lok
Sabha election, the BJP won three of
the five seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in Jharkhand. So much so, the
BJP leadership should have guided his
every step since it bestowed CM post
on him as a part of its political
engineering that was at play in
Haryana and Maharashtra as well. It
did not. Now it must bear the cross
with a sheepish grin.
Anyhow, polarisation did
not work for the BJP while
many factors went against
it. The amendment to the
local land acquisition law
was seen by tribals as an
assault on their rights.
Creation of land banks
confounded the tribal
voters further, as a political
scientist puts.
Raghubar Das
Modi’s political rejig has been
seeking to ignore the local dominant
caste or community in state after state
and prefer a leader, who can be
groomed to deliver. Devendra
Phadnavis in Mumbai and Raghubar
Das in Ranchi failed the test and have
been dumped. Luck has favoured
Manohar Lal Khattar; he survives in
Haryana even after the electorate has
shown their disenchantment with his
brand.
The message from Ranchi is clear therefore. Modi wave has no value
addition at the state level. It is the local
satrap who matters. By implication it
also means that vote for Modi in the
2019 LS polls was not for his Hindutva
plank but his delivery on development
front.
This is bad news to both Hedgewar
Bhawan (RSS headquarters, Nagpur)
and Big Building on Deen Dayal
Upadhyaya Marg (BJP in Delhi). But it
certainly makes the Grand Old Party
(GOP) to smile. Both mother and son
aided by the daughter appear willing
to shed their inhibitions, as also sense
of their legacy in order to piggy back
any winning horse anywhere.
Modi’s political rejig has
been seeking to ignore
the local dominant caste
or community in state
after state and prefer a
leader, who can be
groomed to deliver.
Devendra Phadnavis in
Mumbai and Raghubar
Das in Ranchi failed the
test and have been
dumped. Luck has
favoured Manohar Lal
Khattar; he survives in
Haryana even after the
electorate has shown
their disenchantment
with his brand.
Hemant Soren meets father
Shibu Soren touches his feet
They realise that to be relevant on
the Indian scene, and to off-set the
loss of bench strength in Parliament, the Congress must be in reckoning in
as many states as possible. A clear give
away is the tie-up with the Maratha Big
Brother, Shiv Sena, for whom Veer
Savarkar is a hero whether Rahul
Gandhi likes or not.
It is tempting to see the Jharkhand
vote as a referendum on the CAA and
NRC as Congress leaders like RPN
Singh have done. Any such effort will
be missing the woods for the trees.
This is
notwithstanding Modi’s remark at a
poll rally,
"Those (opposing the government and resorting to violence over
Citizenship Amendment Act) could be
identified with their clothes"? It is
because, CAA became a political
football only after Jharkhand entered
its penultimate rounds of voting.
Anyhow, polarisation did not work
for the BJP while many factors went
against it. The amendment to the local
land acquisition law was seen by
tribals as an assault on their rights.
Creation of land banks confounded
the tribal voters further, as a political
scientist puts. The Pathalgadi
movement for the rights of tribals has
hurt the BJP as the party came to be
seen acting against the tribal
sentiment.The anti-conversion bill did
no less damage and as the day of the
ballot approached the BJP miseries
were compounded by lynching deaths
– more than 20 in the past two years
alone.
Put simply, the loss of yet another
state for the BJP is a self-inflicted
wound that became unavoidable in
the absence of the ability of the
leadership to hear murmurs from the
ground for timely course corrections.