In a stunning electoral verdict, Jharkhand has broken its 24-year jinx of never returning an incumbent government to power. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led INDIA bloc’s sweeping victory, securing a two-thirds majority despite the BJP’s highly polarising campaign, is inarguably an outcome of a strong social coalition powered by an array of welfare schemes.

The scale of victory is also impressive: while the INDIA partners the JMM, the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation [CPI(M-L)] delivered strong performances across the board, only the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) camp managed to stay afloat, emerging as the second-largest party while its allies, the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) and the Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)], failed to make an impact.

The INDIA bloc is set to win 56 of 81 seats in the State. The JMM looks set to win 34 seats, 9 more than the 25 it won in 2019; its ally the Congress 16 seats, equal to what it won in 2019; and the RJD won 4, close to the 6 seats it won in 2019. The CPI(M-L) has won 2 seats.

The JMM, riding on sympathy votes for Hemant Soren after his arrest and subsequent bail in a corruption case, has registered a rise, while other INDIA partners have by and large retained their seats. In the NDA bloc, while the BJP is set to win 21 seats, its allies AJSU, JD(U), and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) [LJP(RV)] have only one seat each.

The JMM’s strike rate is spectacular at nearly 75 per cent compared with the BJP. While the saffron party as the lead party in the NDA contested 68 of 81 seats, the JMM in the INDIA bloc contested only 43 seats. A reason for Sudesh Mahato-led AJSU’s poor show is the rise of the new entrant in Jharkhand politics, Jairam Mahato, who won the Dumri Assembly seat. Both Sudesh and Jairam come from the same Kudmi-Mahato community, which is the second-largest voting bloc after tribal people in the State.

Jairam’s Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha seems to have damaged the NDA’s prospects in several seats. The Kurmis, accounting for nearly 14 per cent of votes, are key to victory in over 30 of the 81 Assembly seats in Jharkhand, particularly in the districts of Ranchi, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur, and Giridih.

Also Read | BJP’s ‘poach and polarise’ strategy for Jharkhand

The BJP-AJSU alliance had bagged 47 seats (BJP-42 and AJSU-05) in the 2014 Assembly election. In 2019, when they fought separately, they won 25 and two seats, respectively. When they united again in 2024, hopes were high for recreating the 2014 scenario. However, they performed nowhere close, with the BJP winning only 21 seats and AJSU just one. The addition of JD(U) and LJP(RV) also did not help the BJP significantly.

Despite an extremely divisive pitch of “Jamai Jehad” and “Zameen Jehad” centred on allegations of infiltration by Bangladeshi Muslims and their acquisition of tribal lands and marriages with tribal women, the BJP could achieve a strike rate of below 30 per cent.

The Congress, which had proved a weak link in the INDIA bloc in the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, performed well in Jharkhand, winning 16 of the 30 seats it contested.

JMM’s steady ascent

This election marks the JMM’s consistent rise in Jharkhand. It won 18 seats in 2009, 19 in 2014, 30 in the 2019 State election, and now 33 Assembly seats. The BJP, though down to 21 from the 25 seats it won in 2019, remains a significant force in the tribal-dominated State. But its performance will dampen spirits, as it has deployed a battery of tribal leaders this time, including many imports from parties like the JMM and the Congress.

Prem Singh, a former teacher at Delhi University and former fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, told Frontline: “The communal issue of infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims in the State backfired on the BJP. This election result has made it clear that the BJP’s communal campaign has not yet spread to rural Jharkhand. It remains a city-centric party in the State.”

Singh noted that the BJP could not counter several ground factors: sympathy among tribal communities following Hemant Soren’s arrest, support from non-tribal women due to Maiya Samman Yojana, and the polarisation of Muslim minority votes in favour of the INDIA bloc.

“It was said that the BJP tried to harm the JMM and the INDIA bloc by providing resources to Jairam Mahto of Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha. But this strategy failed. The BJP also angered some of its old leaders and voters by fielding new faces picked from political families,” Singh observed.

A look at Jharkhand’s electoral map shows that the BJP’s attempt to woo tribal votes by raising concerns about Bangladeshi infiltration has flopped, as it failed to win many seats in the Santhal Pargana region. Most of its victories came from its traditional strongholds in Palamu and North Chotanagpur.

In Kolhan, where the BJP had high hopes riding on Champai Soren, the results fell below expectations. Although Champai won his Saraikela seat, his son Babulal Soren lost from Ghatshila. In the last Assembly election, the BJP failed to win any of the 14 Assembly seats in Kolhan.

Overall, the BJP had won just two of the 28 tribal reserved seats in 2019, and this time too, its performance in these constituencies appears limited.

Even former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda’s wife, Meera Munda, lost from the Potka seat. Shibu Soren’s eldest daughter-in-law, Sita Soren, who had earlier lost the Dumka Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate, lost by a huge margin of over 43,000 votes in the Jamtara seat.

Former Chief Minister Madhu Koda’s wife, Geeta Koda, lost in Jagannathpur. A former Lok Sabha MP from the Congress, she had joined the BJP before the 2024 general election and lost from the Singhbhum Lok Sabha seat months ago before being fielded as an MLA candidate this time.

Polarisation politics finds few takers

Releasing the BJP’s Sankalp Patra (manifesto) on November 3 in Ranchi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had promised to “identify and deport” every infiltrator and reclaim “land they usurped” from tribal people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at an election rally in Chaibasa in Kolhan division on November 4, warned tribal people that “they” (referring to Muslims) were snatching their bread, taking away their daughters, and usurping their land. This escalated the BJP’s ongoing campaign in the Santhal Pargana region, which claimed Muslims from Bangladesh were marrying tribal women and changing demographics.

Clearly, this strategy has not worked.

Siraj Dutta, a social activist and researcher associated with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in Jharkhand, told Frontline: “The result is a clear rejection of the BJP’s deeply communal and divisive politics. The BJP ran an extremely hateful campaign against Muslims using the bogey of Bangladeshi infiltration. Several mainstream media outlets and digital news portals blindly pushed the BJP’s agenda. It did not resonate with Adivasis and other Jharkhandi communities, even in Santhal Pargana, as it simply doesn’t exist on the ground.”

Dutta noted that contrary to the BJP’s communal agenda based on unfounded claims, INDIA bloc parties, led by the JMM, focussed on people’s issues and questions of Jharkhandi identity in their campaign.

“Along with Adivasis, a large proportion of backward and Dalit Jharkhandi communities have also rejected the BJP’s communal politics in favour of Hemant Soren’s welfare work. The consolidation of Adivasis against the BJP visible in this year’s Lok Sabha election intensified further. In the last five years, the BJP’s agenda of assimilating Adivasis into the Hindutva fold has faced stiff political resistance. The pro-corporate policies of the Modi government at the cost of Adivasi resources are also exposed,” he explained.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP won nine of 14 Lok Sabha seats, and the NDA had led in more than 50 Assembly seats. They were hopeful of a better show this time, believing that with Hemant Soren out on bail, the sympathy factor would no longer work for the JMM.

Also Read | In Jharkhand, a contest between BJP’s anti-infiltration stance and JMM’s tribal identity politics

The BJP, which lost the 2019 Assembly election after appointing non-tribal Chief Minister Raghubar Das following its 2014 victory, attempted course correction by bringing back Jharkhand’s first tribal Chief Minister, Babulal Marandi. While Marandi won his Rajdhanwar seat in Giridih, he clearly has not proved to be the BJP’s trump card in the State.

The BJP pitched the Gogo Didi Yojana to counter the JMM-led alliance government’s Maiya Samman Yojana to attract female voters. However, voters seemingly preferred a delivered scheme over a promised one.

The BJP’s manifesto promised to transfer Rs.2,100 monthly to women’s bank accounts under their scheme after forming the government. Under the existing Maiyya Samman Yojana, Rs. 1,000 per month is credited to over 50 lakh women’s accounts in the State. Chief Minister Hemant Soren promised to increase this amount to Rs.2,500 monthly from December if his party returned to power.

Women voters outnumbered men in 32 Assembly constituencies, with female turnout exceeding male turnout in more than 80 per cent of seats this time. One wonders if the caste-neutral women voters were the decisive factor in this outcome.

Jharkhand is heading for a polarised Assembly election, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) raising the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration and vowing to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), and the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) banking on its tribal leadership and its demand for a separate code for the Sarna tribal religion to gain victory.

Releasing the BJP’s manifesto on November 3 in Ranchi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised to “identify and deport” every infiltrator and take back the “land they usurped” from the tribal people. Shah also said that the tribal communities would be kept out of the ambit of the UCC, and announced that it would be implemented adopting the Uttarakhand model.

On this part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an election rally in Chaibasa in Kolhan division on November 4, “They are snatching your bread, they are taking away your daughters and they are also usurping your land (ye aapki roti cheen rahe hain, aapki beti bhi chcheeni rahe hain aur ye aapki maati ko bhi hadap rahe hain). It drew a sharp reaction from the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, who called it a new low after Modi’s remarks in Rajasthan and Gujarat during the Lok Sabha election about the Opposition “stealing away the Mangalsutra” and “stealing away buffaloes” from the people.

Also Read | Back as Chief Minister, Hemant Soren aims to ride sympathy wave in Jharkhand Assembly election

This was a scale-up of the BJP’s ongoing campaign in the Santhal Pargana region, which claimed that Muslims from Bangladesh were marrying tribal women and changing the demography.

Shah attributed the alleged decline in the tribal population in Jharkhand to this reason and promised to put an end to it as the BJP government did in Assam, where the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was implemented in 2018-2019.

In both Assam and Uttarakhand, the BJP has drawn flak for undermining the Muslim population but has retained power in a polarised atmosphere.

Rattled at the BJP’s attempt to create a rupture in the tribal-Muslim alliance assiduously built by the INDIA coalition in the State, Chief Minister Hemant Soren asserted that neither the UCC nor the NRC will be allowed in Jharkhand. He also said that his government would rely solely on the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act (CNT) and the Santhal Pargana Act (SPT), the laws in force in the State, to protect the land ownership rights of the tribal people.

The JMM also upped the ante by promising to include the Sarna tribal religion (centred around the worship of nature) in the national census and implement a Sarna Code to govern tribal people. Four years ago, in 2020, the Jharkhand Assembly passed a resolution in its favour. Months ago when the Lok Sabha election was held, the BJP was cornered over the issue of the Sarna Code and lost all five seats reserved for the tribal communities.

With or without an alliance

In the NDA, while the BJP is contesting the majority of seats—68 out of 81—the lead alliance partner in the INDIA bloc, the JMM, is contesting only 43 seats. The Congress is contesting 30 Assembly seats as a part of the alliance and there are apprehensions that it might be the weak link, like in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh and 2020 Bihar Assembly elections.

While both the BJP and the JMM have a strong cadre base in the State, the former is also aided by the RSS. The other parties are mostly oriented around their leaders in the respective regions. But the Congress is confident of a good show. Party leader Alok Dubey said there is renewed confidence that the INDIA bloc will form the government once again.

After a strategy meeting of the party, Dubey said, “We took stock of our election preparations and various management activities for the final stretch of the campaign. We discussed ways to put our strategy into motion, from the Central and State level all the way to each booth. Our alliance is mounting a formidable campaign and we are in a strong position to form the government once again and continue the welfare and growth of Jharkhand for another five-year term.” However, Jharkhand has never re-elected an incumbent government in the past 24 years since the State was carved out from Bihar in 2000.

Of the five divisions—Kolhan, Santhal Pargana, North Chota Nagpur, South Chota Nagpur and Palamu—BJP was ahead in 2019 in only two—North Chota Nagpur and Palamu. Out of 25 seats in North Chota Nagpur, the BJP alone had won 10. It also won five out of nine assembly seats in Palamu division. Of the 14 seats in Kolhan, the BJP won none while it secured only 4 out of 18 seats in Santhal Pargana.

Out of the 15 Assembly seats in South Chota Nagpur, 11 are reserved for tribal candidates. Two of the 28 tribal reserved seats that the BJP won in 2019 were from this region. In total, the BJP got five seats in South Chota Nagpur and JMM-Congress eight. One was won by the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) and one by the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) [JVM(P)].

While in Kolhan the BJP is banking on three former tribal Chief Ministers—Champai Soren, Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda—for its revival, it hopes that polarisation will work in Santhal Pargana and that the alliance with AJSU in both divisions of Chota Nagpur. Playing safe, the BJP has fielded current MLAs and former MPs in the region.

As the BJP made a desperate bid to score over the JMM in tribal politics, one was witness to the spectacle of the tribal politician Mandal Murmu—one of the proposers of Hemant Soren’s nomination and a descendant of Sido-Kanhu (Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu) who led the 1855 iconic Santhal protest against the British and the zamindari system—joining the BJP on November 4.

Hemant Soren is contesting from Barhait in the Santhal Pargana region, where the JMM is in a relatively strong position. Despite the BJP’s focus on issues like Bangladeshi infiltrators and with Sita Soren, the Chief Minister’s sister-in-law, leaving the JMM and joining the saffron party in March (she is now contesting from the Jamtara seat), the JMM remains resilient.

Kolhan will be crucial

The 14 Assembly seats in the Kolhan region could decide the winner in the election. The BJP, which scored a duck there in the 2019 election, has now deployed all its machinery to change the outcome. It has fielded former Chief Minister Arjun Munda’s wife Meera Munda from Potka in East Singhbhum distirict, former JMM leader and former Chief Minister Champai Soren from Saraikela, and former Chief Minister Madhu Koda’s wife Gita Koda from Jagannathpur in West Singhbhum. All these candidates are from tribal communities. Champai Soren, who left the JMM and joined the BJP in August, is a prize catch for the party. He is called ‘Kolhan Tiger’ and the JMM is trying to prove hard that the tiger is toothless.

Other key seats in Kolhan are East Jamshedpur from where the BJP has fielded Purnima Sahu, the daughter in-law of former Chief Minister Raghubar Das, who was the only Jharkhand Chief Minister to have completed a full five-year term (2014 and 2019). Sahu is contesting against former Jharkhand Congress chief Ajoy Kumar, who as an IPS officer had served as Jamshedpur SP in the past.

The BJP lost the 2019 Assembly election in Jharkhand under the leadership of Das, an OBC candidate. Das himself lost to party rebel Saryu Rai, known once as the “Chanakya” of Jharkhand politics and who is now back in the NDA as the Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)] candidate from Jamshedpur West.

Rai earlier contested from this seat for the BJP but, after his revolt, he shifted to Jamshedpur East in 2019 and defeated sitting Chief Minister Das.

While the JMM, which had won 11 of the 14 seats in Kolhan in the last Assembly election, has fielded 9 of its sitting MLAs, the BJP has changed candidates in 10 seats. That reveals the state of mind of both the parties in the region.

Some of the Kolhan battles are interesting. Champai Soren had won the Saraikela seat for the JMM in 2019 against the BJP’s Ganesh Mahali. With Champai joining the BJP, the JMM has inducted Mahali and fielded him against the former Chief Minister from the seat.

Feedback from the ground suggests that while it could be smooth sailing for Champai Soren in Saraikela, his son Babulal Soren might find the going tough in Ghatshila. Addressing a rally in Ghatshila on November 5, Hemant Soren’s wife and candidate from Gandey Kalpana Soren cautioned against the BJP’s “money power” but asserted that only the bow-and-arrow symbol of the JMM would work there. JMM Minister Ramdas Soren is pitted against the newbie.

Gita Koda, who is contesting from Jagannathpur, and Meera Munda, the wife of former Chief Minister Arjun Munda, who is being fielded from Potka, are also strong candidates of the BJP.

Both Chief Minister Hemant Soren from Barhait in Santhal Pargana and Kalpana Soren in Gandey of North Chota Nagpur are well placed on the other side. The Gandey seat had fallen vacant after the resignation of Sarfaraz Ahmad this year and was won by Kalpana Soren in a byelection.

Hemant Soren’s brother Basant Soren’s advantage in the Dumka Assembly seat is that it has traditionally been a JMM seat. The seat has been represented by Hemant Soren umpteen times, including in 2019 when he won both the Dumka and Barhait seats. After he chose to resign from Dumka, Basant Soren won the seat in a byelection in 2020. The BJP’s Lois Marandi, who lost the seat to the JMM both times, has now joined the JMM.

Three-term MLA Sita Soren, the eldest daughter-in-law of Shibu Soren, who lost the Lok Sabha election from Dumka on a BJP ticket after joining the party in March, is also breathing easy in the Jamtara seat. Chances of a win for Purnima Das will depend a lot on the role played by JD(U) leader Saryu Rai.

BJP state president Babulal Marandi, contesting from Dhanwar, might find the going much easier in his traditional seat as both the JMM and the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) have opted for a friendly contest fielding separate candidates there. In the BJP stronghold of Ranchi, the State capital, the JMM is making a last-ditch attempt to win by fielding its Rajya Sabha MP Mahua Majhi against six-term MLA C.P. Singh. In the last Assembly election, Singh defeated Majhi by a margin of a little over 5,000 votes. The BJP has traditionally been strong in the urban seats in Jharkhand.

Former Union Minister Rameshwar Oraon is contesting from Lohardaga on a Congress ticket. He had defeated the BJP’s Sukhdev Bhagat in the 2019 Assembly election. The number of votes he got in this tribal seat was more than the combined votes of the BJP and AJSU, which fought separately.

In Bokaro, also called the Steel City, two-term sitting BJP MLA Biranchi Narayan (BJP) will once again face Sweta Singh (Congress). Singh is the daughter-in-law of former BJP veteran Samresh Singh, who is said to have given the lotus symbol to the BJP.

In the coal belt of Dhanbad, the BJP MLA for the last two terms, Raj Sinha, will face Ajay Dubey of the Congress, who had lost the 2014 Lok Sabha election from the seat to the BJP’s P. N. Singh.

It’s all relative

But the more interesting battle is in the coal belt in Jharia where the warring factions of Singh Mansion (residence of the family of former MLA and coal mafia leader late Suryadeo Singh) of Dhanbad, which used to call the shots, are battling it out.

Here the contest is between the sitting MLA from the Congress Purnima Neeraj Singh—wife of former deputy mayor of Dhanbad late Neeraj Singh—and BJP’s Ragini Singh, wife of former BJP MLA Sanjeev Singh. Neeraj was murdered in 2017 and Sanjeev Singh, his cousin, was arrested in the case. The clash between the two sisters-in-law also happened in 2019. Purnima Singh had then won against Ragini Singh. Clearly, the sympathy factor worked for Purnima Singh in the 2019 Assembly election after her husband’s killing, as Sanjeev Singh, who had won the seat in 2014, was arrested.

Alliance is key to power in Jharkhand. In 2014 when the JMM and the Congress fought separately, they could win only 25 seats but after forming the alliance in 2019, their tally rose to 47. The BJP learnt it the hard way in 2019 when it did not ally with the AJSU and could win only 25 seats—a substantial decline from the 42 it had bagged in alliance with that party in 2014.

This time, both sides have strong alliances. While the BJP-AJSU has added JD(U) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) to its grouping, the JMM-Congress also has the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Left parties in the INDIA bloc. With Babulal Marandi back in the BJP as its State chief, his party JVM(P)’s six per cent vote share may also add to the NDA’s numbers.

The new kid on the block

The emergence of the Jairam Mahato-led Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha surprised many people with its vote share in a number of Lok Sabha seats in the last general election. Mahato belongs to the same Kudmi-Kurmi caste that is the support base of the AJSU. His politics of “locals versus outsiders”, a pale remnant of the “diku (outsider) versus native” politics during the Jharkhand movement, could disrupt the existing course and discourse of political alignments in the State.

Mahato himself had secured 3.47 lakh votes when he contested from the Giridih Lok Sabha seat. This time, he is contesting from the Dumri Assembly seat and many people are sure that he will win.

The Kurmis, accounting for nearly 14 per cent of the votes, can tilt the balance in over 30 of the 81 Assembly seats in Jharkhand, particularly in the districts of Ranchi, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur and Giridih.

Also Read | Jharkhand: Defeat in all Lok Sabha seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes could hurt BJP in Assembly elections

Tribal people account for 26.21 per cent of Jharkhand’s population and have 28 seats reserved for them. The JMM had won 19 of them, the Congress 6, the BJP 2 and Marandi’s JVM(P) 1. Despite Marandi now being with the BJP, the party could not win even a single of the five Lok Sabha seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. And Hemant Soren is now out of prison.

Women voters outnumber men in 32 Assembly constituencies. Out of these 32, 26 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes, which means only 2 other seats reserved for STs have more male voters. Men migrate to other cities for work, especially from the tribal and Dalit segments; hence women’s votes are important. That possibly explains why the BJP has fielded more women this time, though most of them are from political families.

The BJP has pitched the Gogo Didi Yojana to counter the JMM-led alliance government’s Maiyan Samman Yojana to attract female voters. The BJP has promised in its manifesto that it would transfer Rs 2,100 per month to the bank accounts of women, under the scheme, after forming the government.

Under the Maiyan Samman Yojana, Rs 1,000 per month is credited to the accounts of over 50 lakh women in the State. Chief minister Hemant Soren said that the amount would be increased to Rs 2,500 every month from December, if his party is voted to power again.

Polarisation and promises apart, people in the tribal state are looking for a real change in their fortune. Will the politicians live up to the expectations? 

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren, who recently switched allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has accused the Hemant Soren-led government of jeopardizing his safety by withdrawing all security vehicles assigned to him.

Former Chief Minister Champai Soren, previously with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), labeled the move as a “political conspiracy” intended to intimidate him.

“The Jharkhand government withdrew all security vehicles assigned to me, putting my life at risk, under a political conspiracy. I am not afraid of this move. The people of Jharkhand would provide security to me,” he asserted in an interview with PTI.

Champai Soren emphasized that he has always remained true to his values and believes the electorate will respond decisively against the JMM-led coalition in the upcoming assembly polls.

In response to Jharkhand Chief Minister and JMM leader Hemant Soren’s accusations that the BJP is “buying” political leaders, Champai stated, “No one can dare buy me. I have made crystal clear the circumstances behind leaving JMM.” His decision to join the BJP stems from feelings of “humiliation” and “disrespect” he claims to have experienced within the JMM.

Hemant Soren Accuses BJP of Divisive Tactics

Chief Minister Hemant Soren has launched a scathing critique of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), likening them to “rats” undermining communal harmony in Jharkhand for electoral gain.

Speaking at a rally in Bhognadih, Hemant Soren alleged that the BJP is intentionally fostering discord between Hindu and Muslim communities, particularly highlighting the involvement of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

“RSS is invading the state like rats and destroying it. Chase such forces away when you see them entering your villages with ‘handia’ and ‘daru’ (locally brewed liquor)… They want to create communal disturbances and tension ahead of elections for political gains,” Soren declared during the rally, which he addressed virtually from Ranchi.

Hemant Soren warned of increasing provocations, such as throwing meat into temples and mosques, characterizing the BJP as a party primarily serving traders and industrialists. His comments seem directed at Champai Soren’s recent defection, which he views as part of the BJP’s strategy to manipulate local politics for its agenda.