Infiltration pitch fails to help BJP in Jharkhand tribal belt

The Jharkhand electoral contest was expected to be closer than the final outcome showed, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulling out all the stops on its Hindutva pitch during a high-octane campaign centred around alleged infiltration by Bangladeshis and corruption charges against chief minister Hemant Soren.
As the BJP strategy did not seem to have worked, an eerie silence gripped the party’s state headquarters by Saturday afternoon as the trends pouring in pointed towards a huge lead for the incumbent. The BJP was the lead partner in the alliance with the AJSU, JDU and LJP-R and contested 68 of the 81 seats. The AJSU contested 10 seats, the JDU two and the LJP-R one. The AJSU, the JDU and the LJP-R won one seat each.
The BJP managed to win 21 seats, four down from 2019. Of the 25 seats the BJP won in 2019, the party could retain just 10, with some big names including leader of the opposition Amar Kumar Bauri, chief whip Biranchi Narayan and four-term legislator Neelkanth Singh Munda losing.
Despite a series of efforts put in by the BJP in the past five years to win over the confidence of the tribal community, the party was wiped out in the 28 seats reserved for scheduled tribes, with turncoat and former chief minister Champai Soren being the sole winner from the Saraikela seat in Kolhan division.
While top leaders remained tight-lipped, party insiders attributed a variety of reasons, including ticket distribution, disconnect with the tribal voters, the Jairam Mahto factor and over dependence on the pitch around Bangladeshi infiltration, as the major reasons behind the inadequate performance.
To be sure, 29-year-old Jairam Mahto formed a new party, Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha, which had a major sway among the Kudmi community that dominate around a dozen seats in Koylanchal, comprising the Ramgarh-Bokaro-Dhanbad-Giridih belt. He cut into the community votes which has traditionally backed the AJSU, the principal ally of the BJP.
“There was discontent among the party cadres related to ticket distribution. There were repeated demands to change candidates on some of our existing seats as the survey reports were against the incumbents. And that got reflected in the result. While we won several new seats, we lost 60% of our sitting seats. The party dumped three sitting legislators and got new candidates. Two of those three won,” a senior party leader said.
Party insiders also admitted that winning over the trust of the tribal community had become the Achilles heel of the party.
“We have tried everything, but the slide continues since 2019 when we got a non-tribal chief minister. We are also not able to project a tribal face who could match Hemant Soren. We had Babulal Marandi in the driver’s seat but he contested from a general seat. It does not add value to the issue. The party will have to rethink its strategy in developing a new crop,” said another senior leader.
The issue of Bangladeshi infiltration failed to make an impact on the ground, even in the Santhal Parganas area where infiltration is alleged to have changed the local demography and led to a reduction of tribal population.
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“This issue was raked up in the past three months or so. But it could not create a buzz among the tribal population. Steps like inducting Mandal Murmu, the proposer of Hemant Soren, only added to the sympathy factor that Hemant enjoyed after he was arrested by the ED (Enforcement Directorate),” said another BJP leader.