Category: Jharkhand

Jharkhand Results Indicate That AAP Will Sweep Delhi Polls: Sanjay Singh.

Source – ndtv.com

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh on Wednesday said that the Jharkhand Assembly poll results indicate that his party will come back to power for a second consecutive term in Delhi.

“It is evident that AAP will come back to power in Delhi with a thumping majority. The results of Jharkhand indicate that now elections will be fought on local issues. Today, inflation, education, health are real issues. We have worked on these issues in Delhi,” Mr Singh told reporters in Delhi.

“Jharkhand results indicate that the people of Delhi will make Kejriwal win with a big majority. People will vote for the work done,” he said.

In Jharkhand, BJP suffered a major defeat as Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance, including Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal, secured a comfortable majority bagging 47 seats in the 81-member Assembly.

Delhi, where 70 seats are at stake will go to poll early next year. In 2015, the ruling AAP registered a landslide victory by winning 67 seats.

Understanding the local, in Jharkhand and beyond.

Source – hindustantimes.com

Interpreting state election results is fraught with risk, as analysts combine explanations that rarely point in the same direction. The data suggests that state elections are fought and won on local lines, and that recognisable regional leadership can put a challenge to national political figures, as has happened in many of the recent assembly elections. At the same time, analysts try to interpret the meaning of the outcome in the larger political framework — national politics or the next state election.

In the recently concluded election in Jharkhand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Mahagathbandan (MGB) of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the Rashtriya Janata Party and the Congress have similar vote shares — 33.4% for the BJP and 32.6% for the MGB. But the margin suggests that the latter’s victory could easily have been a landslide but for a few thousand votes. Sixteen Members of Legislative Assembly have been elected with margins of less than 5%, nine of them from the BJP.

The MGB’s advantage lay in the tribal belts, where the JMM won 16 seats and the Congress six, against the BJP’s two. Participation was also higher in these areas, particularly the Santhal Parganas Division and the Kolhan Division, which the MGB swept. It’s proof that the alliance successfully channelised voters’ discontent with the incumbent’s performance. Given the relatively small size of the assembly — 81 seats — local and subregional dynamics are more likely to have had an impact on the outcome, more so than in larger states where those effects tend to be more diluted.

Another factor that played in favour of the alliance is the BJP’s decision to go alone in the polls. Its erstwhile partner, the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), cost the party the vote share it needed to stay ahead. The AJSU’s effort to mobilise the Other Backward Castes — the Kurmis in particular — considerably harmed the BJP, particularly in central Jharkhand, where the Congress performed well even in urban seats.

In retrospect, the decision to go alone proved fatal for a BJP led by an unpopular chief minister. Jharkhand’s history, with no party ever winning a majority in the House since the creation of the state, should have informed the party of the uphill task. The cumulative vote share of the main contenders — the BJP, Congress and JMM — over the past four elections has been 49.9% in 2005, 51.6% in 2009, 62% in 2014 and 68.7% in 2019, respectively. Even though the vote share of the main contenders is steadily going up, it still leaves one out of three voters not opting for any of the major contenders. It signifies the importance of local factors as well as local political forces.

Among the national parties, the Jharkhand success shows the Congress that it pays off to assume the role of junior partner in a pre-electoral alliance. Its candidates underperformed compared to the JMM candidates, particularly when in direct contest with the BJP. The Congress had a difficult task against the BJP in urban and general seats, but contesting fewer seats compensated for its comparative weakness of having no visible leadership. It left the stage to Hemant Soren, who was projected as the chief ministerial candidate. The Jharkhand results may lead the party to reconsider its alliance strategies in upcoming elections in Delhi and Bihar.

For the BJP, this is an opportunity to rethink its strategy in state elections. Though one can argue that the party has maintained its vote share, the Jharkhand result is a setback, particularly when some of its national policies are backfiring and the economy continues to be weak. Even if there is no clear impact of the current national controversies in the Jharkhand election, the fact that the BJP campaigned exactly on those issues and lost shows these issues have little endorsement at the regional level. They don’t seem to compensate for the state government’s lacklustre performance.

The BJP’s post-2014 winning spree in state polls created an image of the party’s dominance, if not hegemony. The results of the last six state elections show that while the BJP uses its strengths to make inroads in new political spaces, it is unable to use the same cards to retain power. This will have far-reaching consequences for the BJP at the Centre, which will become increasingly dependent on non-BJP states to implement its policies. Many chief ministers — including within the National Democratic Alliance — going back on the National Register of Citizens is one of the first examples of future hurdles.

In such a situation, the BJP is left with only two options. Either it tightens its grip on the organisation and centralises powers further, including pushing on levers against state governments. Or it gives some leeway to its state organisations and regional leaders, and lets them lead the fight on local or regional terms. One can, though, argue that the BJP normally doesn’t let its grip go on its regional structure. The alternative would be the route chosen by Indira Gandhi, who, faced with mounting challenges from the states, both from within and outside her party, concentrated powers further to the point of rupture with democratic norms.

After Jharkhand Loss, BJP’s Bihar Mission Is To Keep Nitish Kumar Happy.

Source – ndtv.com

Patna: With the BJP suffering a crushing defeat in the Jharkhand elections after its separation from the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), the party leadership in neighbouring Bihar on Thursday insisted that its alliance with Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United remains strong and unaffected by differences over seat-sharing.

“The NDA is united in Bihar, and there are no differences over seat-sharing. Our alliance is led by five-time Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,” tweeted Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

Significantly, he also praised Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Hemant Soren – who is set to lead the alliance government in Jharkhand – even if it was only to put down the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav.

“The Mahagathbandhan‘s (grand alliance’s) leadership is not in the hands of a person who is educated, simple and polite like Hemant Soren, but with a young man who has been charged with 54 benami property cases at the age of 29,” Mr Modi further claimed in his tweet.

The Congress-JMM combine scored an impressive victory in Jharkhand in the just-concluded elections, bagging 47 seats as compared to the BJP’s 25 and the AJSU’s two. Even as the results were coming through, Tejashwi Yadav – who is also the leader of the opposition in the Bihar assembly – hinted that it would have a cascading effect on the assembly elections next year.

Mr Modi’s tweet was seen as a response to this claim.

Besides Jharkhand, the BJP also suffered a massive loss in Maharashtra last month after the Shiv Sena ended their 30-year-old alliance after differences over sharing the chief minister’s position on a rotational basis. After the latest defeat, Janata Dal United spokesperson Sanjay Singh warned the BJP against pushing its luck with allies. Even Shiromani Akali Dal leader Naresh Gujral said that a bulk of the ruling party’s allies were “unhappy” over issues like the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

However, BJP MP Ramkripal Yadav rejected suggestions of dissent among allies in Bihar, saying that the extraordinary work done by Nitish Kumar would ensure the coalition’s return to power next year.

For now, the party leadership in Bihar has resolved to keep the Janata Dal United in good humour at all costs. BJP leader Giriraj Singh – who had clashed with Nitish Kumar during the Patna floods earlier this year – has been told to not make any controversial statements on the Citizenship Amendment Act or the NRC, and the party is wary of the Janata Dal United seeking a bigger slice of the seat-sharing pie ahead of the polls.

Jharkhand CM-designate Hemant Soren Meets Sonia Gandhi, Invites Her for Swearing-in Ceremony.

Source – news18.com

New Delhi: Jharkhand chief minister-designate Hemant Soren on Wednesday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and invited her for his swearing-in ceremony scheduled in Ranchi on December 29.

Soren arrived here in the afternoon and is also expected to meet Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and invite them for the function. He was accompanied by Congress leaders KC Venugopal and RPN Singh, who is the party’s in-charge for Jharkhand.

Before the meeting with Sonia Gandhi at her 10 Janpath residence, Soren had said it is a courtesy meeting. Soren also wanted to thank the Congress and its leadership for their support in helping form a coalition government in the state, sources close to him said.

The JMM-led three-party alliance stormed to power in Jharkhand on Monday, ousting the BJP in yet another state in the Hindi heartland after the saffron party’s stupendous performance in the Lok Sabha elections.

The JMM on Wednesday said Governor Droupadi Murmu has invited its working president and chief minister-designate Hemant Soren to form government.

The governor’s invitation comes a day after Soren called on the governor at Raj Bhavan to stake claim to form government, submitting a letter of support of 50 MLAs to her.

The pre-poll opposition combines bagged 47 seats (JMM 30, Congress 16 and RJD one) in the 81-member assembly, while the three-member JVM (P) has extended “unconditional support” to Soren to form government.

Contesting the Jharkhand elections alone for the first time sans long-standing ally the AJSU Party, the ruling BJP bagged 25 seats.

How Sharad Pawar’s Maharashtra strategy shaped Congress’ Jharkhand poll campaign.

Source – hindustantimes.com

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s poll strategy in Maharashtra shaped the Congress’s election campaign in Jharkhand, where it kept the focus on local issues, the economy and jobs, and avoided getting into a debate on nationalism pushed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The political narratives were widely divergent in the tribal-dominated state where the five-phase election ended on Friday and vote counting will be taken up and the outcome announced on Monday,

The BJP made the revocation of Article 370, which scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) the main planks of its poll campaign. The Congress and its alliance partner, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), stuck to their tactic of keeping the rivals engaged on local matters, and limited the discourse on national issues to the economic slowdown, rising prices and unemployment.

The Congress had undoubtedly taken a leaf out of Pawar’s book. The Maratha leader, during the Maharashtra election campaign, successfully skirted he BJP’s nationalism narrative and campaigned extensively on local issues.

“It was deliberate on our part to keep the elections focussed on local issues and not fall into the BJP’s trap of making it nationalism-centered. We had also received feedback that there is strong anti-incumbency against BJP chief minister Raghubar Das and as such they will raise the pitch on Article 370, Ayodhya and the CAB {Citizenship Amendment Bill, now an Act},” said senior Congress leader Ajay Sharma. “We didn’t let that happen and kept the campaign entirely Jharkhand-centric.”

Sharma handled the Congress’s campaign in Ranchi and assisted the party’s Jharkhand in-charge, RPN Singh, in planning strategy.

He said the Congress also thwarted all attempts by the BJP to make it an election centred on Prime Minister Narendra Modi; the ruling party decided to increase his number of Modi rallies it organised in Jharkhand after assessing that local leaders were not getting the required traction on the ground, he said.

The Congress had crafted a different campaign plan for each of the five phases of elections. The party had also planned to end the campaigning on December 18 with a rally by either Congress president Sonia Gandhi or party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The latter, eventually, addressed a public meeting along with JMM chief Hemant Soren at Pakur in the Santhal-Pargana region. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi addressed four rallies across the state.

“For the first time in 18 years, the Congress was in a fighting-fit form and we gave our best. Besides, the in-charge [RPN Singh] camped in the state for 40 consecutive days, which never happened in the past,” said the party’s state working president, Rajesh Thakur.

Jharkhand BJP spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo dismissed the contention that the ruling party was on the back foot on local issues and instead blamed the opposition alliance for polarising the electorate.

“We started with ‘Ghar Ghar Raghubar’ campaign and talked about stability and development in the last five years of the BJP government. But the Congress and JMM leaders started polarising the elections by talking negatively about Article 370 and we responded by exposing their double standards,” Shahdeo said.

He claimed that the alliance also hit the panic button after receiving feedback that minority voters were supporting the BJP in large numbers.

Political analysts said local issues dominated the poll discourse among a large section of voters during the elections. “Roti [bread], kapda [clothes] aur makaan [house] are important for all and they take precedence over national issues. Voters across the country have shown that they vote differently for national and state elections,” said LK Kundan, associate professor in the political science department at Ranchi University.

In the elections tor the 81-member Jharkhand assembly, the Congress contested 31 seats, the JMM 43 and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the third partner in the opposition alliance, seven. The BJP and the All Jharkhand Students Union, or AJSU, Party could not reach an electoral understanding and fought the elections separately.

“It is a ploy. They [BJP and AJSU] have been together for five years and will join hands after the elections. The people are seeing through their drama and will hand over a crushing defeat to them,” Sharma said.

India’s BJP loses polls in Jharkhand where lynchings killed many.

Source – aljazeera.com

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has lost control of the eastern state of Jharkhand , which made headlines in the past few years for a series of mob lynchings – mostly over cows, an animal considered sacred by some Hindus.

The results of the state assembly polls, declared on Monday, showed a pre-election alliance of the regional Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Indian National Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) winning 47 of the 81 seats.

The BJP, which ruled the state since 2014, won 25 seats, according to the Jharkhand state’s election commission.

The Hindu nationalist BJP’s loss of a state it has ruled since 2014 is being seen as a setback for the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mob lynchings

These are the second state elections the BJP has lost since returning to power with a thumping majority in the general elections in May.

“People here are angry with the BJP, the results show this,” Hemant Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, who is tipped to become the chief minister, was quoted as saying by the NDTV news channel. His party
won the largest number of seats at 30.

Among the issues that angered the electorate was nearly 20 cases of mob lynchings of mostly Muslims in the resource-rich state by Hindu vigilante groups believed to be affiliated to the ruling BJP.

In June this year, Tabrez Ansari, 24, was beaten to death by a mob in Jharkhand’s Kharsawan district on suspicion of theft, causing a public uproar.

In 2016, Imtiaz Khan, a 12-year-old schoolboy, and Majloom Ansari, a 32-year-old cattle trader, were abducted, beaten and hanged from a tree in the state’s Latehar district. Eight people were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Since 2012, at least 133 cow-related attacks were reported in India, leading to 50 deaths and more than 290 injuries, according to a FactChecker.in database that records such attacks.

About 98 percent or 130 of the crimes recorded in the database took place after 2014, when the BJP first came to power at the centre, and in Jharkhand state later that year.

Polls in middle of protests

Three of the five rounds of voting in Jharkhand were held in the middle of a sometimes deadly wave of nationwide protests triggered by a new citizenship law, which critics say discriminates against Muslims and has brought thousands of people out on to the streets in opposition.READ MORE

The polls in Jharkhand opened on November 30, before the demonstrations kicked off. However, the BJP’s defeat will be a shot in the arm for India’s opposition parties, some of which have used popular anger against the Citizenship Amendment Act to their advantage.

The Modi government insists that the law is needed to help persecuted non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who came to India before 2015 by giving them Indian citizenship.

In a show of strength on Monday, the BJP staged a protest, attended by several hundred people, in Kolkata in support of the CAA.

“It is wrong to treat the Jharkhand results as a referendum on the citizenship law. State assembly elections are fought on local issues,” BJP spokesman Gopal Krishna Agarwal said.

Since January 2018, the BJP has lost state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states.

The next polls are expected in the national capital territory of Delhi in February next year.

Decoding Jharkhand verdict: Why JMM-Congress poll win is a game changer.

Source – indiatoday.in

Jharkhand has voted the BJP out in a big-impact mandate, six months after the party handed a massive Lok Sabha election victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The verdict favoured the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance which rode a Chhattisgarh-like tribal backlash as the BJP faltered on many political fronts.

The debacle has been made tougher to swallow for the BJP by the loss of sitting Chief Minister Raghubar Das. He lost Jamshedpur East with a margin of 15,833 votes. He had won the seat with a margin of 70,000 votes in 2014. It proved conclusively that the BJP government in the state suffered crippling anti-incumbency.

The Jharkhand loss is yet another derailment the once unbeatable Modi-Shah electoral juggernaut has suffered and this will impact the BJP, the NDA and the overall politics.

A look at India’s political map shows the BJP’s rise and slide in the last three years. In 2017, the Modi-Shah duo had the BJP/NDA flag fluttering over almost 70 per cent of the country. By the time the Shiv Sena took charge of Maharashtra with the NCP and the Congress, the saffron footprint was down to a little over 40 per cent. Jharkhand will bring it down to 35 per cent.

The Jharkhand verdict underlines a new pattern that should worry the BJP. The party’s failure to keep allies is being attributed to the heavier muscle the majority 2019 verdict has given to the BJP. The party has been trumped by regional player JMM like Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra. And again PM Modi’s bête noire, the Congress, has a hand in the BJP’s loss, like in Maharashtra.

WHAT WENT WRONG

The BJP over estimated its strength to begin with. Its ally AJSU wanted 20-odd seats. The BJP didn’t want to give more than 15. Tight fisted and big brotherly, the BJP made a Plan B and decided to go alone.

Some party leaders said that it felt an out-of-alliance AJSU will make the contest multi-party and split the votes against it. The mandate shows this was a blunder. The BJP plus AJSU as allies in 2014 had polled 35 per cent (BJP 31 per cent and AJSU 4 per cent). This time, the BJP polled 34 per cent and AJSU 9 per cent but their seats plummeted.

Speaking to India Today TV, BJP spokesperson Aman Sinha denied that the party has been handed a drubbing. He said, “The party’s vote share has gone up.”

But a close look at the results shows the share is up as it contested 81 seats compared to 70 last time.

The sitting CM’s loss showcases the huge anti-incumbency against the BJP government in the state despite the PM and the central government still enjoying immense popularity.

The BJP’s defeat has multilayered reasons. In 2014, the party chose Raghubar Das, a nontribal leader, as chief minister for a tribal-dominated state. It created a disruptive political template to transcend the caste divide and reduce the whip of the dominant voting group.

But after the five-year rule, the BJP has won just two of the tribal-dominated seats. The decimation is a sign that the BJP’s disruptive template flopped as its actions antagonised the dominant tribals.

The changes it proposed to the Shanthal Parganas Tenancy Act and Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act threatened tribals’ right over land. The tribals didn’t get a share in jobs in the state. Para teachers’ and Anganwadi workers’ protests faced hostile police crackdown. The state government brought the anti-conversion bill which was ferociously opposed by the tribals.

The government’s delivery of welfare schemes was terrible in a state which has 46 per cent people below the poverty line (the national average is 28 per cent). The government could not create jobs and economic achchhe din as 44 per cent investment projects remained stalled between 2016-19.

The Opposition could paint the BJP anti-tribal led by an “outsider CM” as Das was born in Chhattisgarh.

The JMM whose founder Shibu Soren had led a huge uprising of the tribals first against “mahajani pratha” or money lenders’ oppression and then the battle for a separate state of Jharkhand became the immediate beneficiary. Allies Congress and RJD brought the anxiety driven minority vote as the BJP raised issues like Article 370, Ram Mandir, CAA and NRC.

The PM and the BJP tried in vain to make up for local dissatisfaction by bringing in national issues and a polarising push. The party has paid a price for poor brand management yet again.

Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, speaking to India Today TV, said, “The state unit can’t be held solely responsible for the loss. Everyone has to share the blame. The BJP has to realise that it needs a local profile which is distinct and in sync with the national party. When it comes to alliance, the party needs to realise regional aspirations can play within the national fold in the presence of a dominant party”

JHARKHAND POLL RESULT IMPLICATION

The political map of India presents a worrying picture for the BJP. From Rajasthan in the west to Bengal in the east, one can travel without driving through a BJP-ruled state.

Due to this, the perception about the Modi-Shah duo’s capability to create successful political strategies has taken a serious hit ahead of crucial elections in Delhi, West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu.

The biggest impact will be on the BJP’s relations with existing and future allies. The party is no more the same heavy-duty coalition magnet. Since 2017, it has lost PDP, TDP, Shiv Sena and AJSU.

Allies like Nitish Kumar, for example, may feel emboldened and seek more or equal share in seats in Bihar. Already Nitish has spoken against NRC and it may force the BJP to put the controversial move that is close to its heart on the back burner. Future partners may also ask for greater space.

Another state loss means the BJP’s position in Rajya Sabha may not improve anytime in near future and keep the party dependent on non-NDA players like the AIADMK and the BJD.

The Modi government’s legislative capability will take a hit as Constitutional amendments need ratification by 50 per cent state assemblies.

The Jharkhand loss is ill-timed too. The central government is facing a negative perception over the economic slowdown and nationwide protests. This may impact the BJP cadre’s morale.

Jharkhand Poll Result Sends Ripples Through Political Waters of Bihar as Assembly Elections Inch Closer.

Source – news18.com

Patna: Results of the assembly polls in Jharkhand sent ripples through the political waters of Bihar, the parent state out of which the tribal-dominated region was carved out in 2000, capping a movement that had continued for close to a century.

Lalu Prasad’s RJD, once formidable but down in the dumps for some time, erupted in joy over the triumph of the JMM-led alliance, in which it is a minor partner, as it kindled hopes of replicating the success in Bihar where assembly elections are less than a year away.

At the party’s state headquarters here on the Birchand Patel Marg, RJD workers began distributing sweets no sooner than the trends started pouring in and chanted slogans vowing to help Tejashwi Yadav their young chief ministerial candidate for Bihar, who had been actively involved in electioneering in Jharkhand to power.

The party relished the thought of being a part of the winning combination in the adjoining state, even though its own strike rate was far from impressive – winning only one out of the seven seats it had contested.

Shivanand Tiwary, RJD national vice president exuberantly said “why not” when asked by reporters if the party would like to join the new government in Jharkhand.

He termed the victory as “defeat of the BJP’s jingoistic politics” and questioned its “duplicity” on the matter of National Register for Citizens, “which has put the country on the boil”.

“The BJP’s official twitter handle says it has country-wide implementation of NRC on its agenda. So does its president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. But, Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday dismissed it as something off the radar. Why is the PM lying before the nation?” Tiwary asked.

The Congress – an alliance partner of the RJD both in Bihar and Jharkhand – was also buoyed by the poll outcome in the neighbouring state. Leader of the legislative party Sadanand Singh, who has headed the Bihar Congress in the past, advocated “all non-BJP forces, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar” to heed “the need for coming together to defeat the BJP”.

Kumar, who is running a coalition government with the BJP, has been drawing opposition flak after his party voted in favour of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which allegedly discriminates against Muslims.

He has, however, attempted damage control by asserting that he is opposed to NRC as its “combo” with CAA was what made the new law troublesome.

The BJP, which has been on a roll for quite some time and a section of its leaders desirous of putting an end to playing second fiddle to Nitish Kumar, appeared chastened and sought to downplay its defeat in Jharkhand by attributing it to “local factors”.

“The result of Jharkhand must be viewed with reference to local factors and the agony of people because of unfulfilled individual grievances. The state government worked really well but failed to communicate well to the public. The party will assess the whole situation and scenario in coming days.

“The Jharkhand result will have no impact on Bihar because the demography and geography is completely different in both the states,” Bihar BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand said here in a statement.

The NDA government is working hard towards the development of Bihar, and “we are sitting pretty well to win the 2020 assembly election comfortably”, he added.

In Jharkhand, Congress borrows a strategy from Maharashtra’s Sharad Pawar.

Source – hindustantimes.com

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s campaign strategy in Maharashtra shaped the Congress’s line of campaigning in Jharkhand as it kept the focus on local issues, economy and jobs, and avoided getting into a debate on nationalism, as pushed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The state, where tribals play a key role in politics, witnessed a bitter battle of narratives. While the BJP made Article 370, Ayodhya and Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), now an Act (CAA), its poll plank, the Congress and its alliance partner Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) stuck to their tactic of keeping the rivals engaged on local matters, and limited their discourse on national issues to economic slowdown, price rise and unemployment.

The Congress had undoubtedly taken a leaf out of Pawar’s book as the Maratha leader during the Maharashtra elections successfully dodged the BJP’s nationalism narrative and extensively campaigned on local issues.

“It was deliberate on our part to keep the elections focussed on local issues and not fall into the BJP’s trap of making it nationalism-centered. We had also received feedback that there is strong anti-incumbency against BJP chief minister Raghubar Das and as such they will raise the pitch on Article 370, Ayodhya and the CAB,” said senior Congress leader Ajay Sharma. “We didn’t let that happen and kept the campaign entirely Jharkhand-centric.”

Sharma handled the Congress’s campaign in Ranchi and assisted the party’s Jharkhand in-charge, RPN Singh, in campaign strategy and planning.

He said the Congress also thwarted all attempts by the BJP to make it Prime Minister Narendra Modi-centric elections, as the ruling party decided to increase his number of rallies after assessing that the local leaders are not getting the required traction on the ground.

The Congress had crafted different campaign plan for each of the five phases of elections. The party had also planned to end the campaigning on December 18 with a rally by either Congress president Sonia Gandhi or party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The latter, eventually, addressed a public meeting along with JMM chief Hemant Soren at Pakur in the Santhal-Pargana region.

Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi addressed four rallies across the state.

“For the first time in 18 years, the Congress was in a fighting-fit form and we gave our best. Besides, the in-charge [RPN Singh] camped in the state for 40 consecutive days which never happened in the past,” said the party’s state working president, Rajesh Thakur.

But Jharkhand BJP spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo dismissed the contention that the ruling party was on the back-foot on local issues and instead blamed the opposition alliance for polarising the elections.

“We started with ‘Ghar Ghar Raghubar’ campaign and talked about stability and development in the last five years of the BJP government. But the Congress and JMM leaders started polarising the elections by talking negatively about Article 370 and we responded by exposing their double standards,” Shahdeo said.

He claimed that the alliance also hit the panic button after getting the feedback that the minority voters were supporting the BJP in large numbers. “At the same time, national issues are always paramount for us. As far as increasing the Prime Minister’s number of rallies, the figures available suggest a clear 80.9% strike rate for him as compared to 18.1% that of Rahul Gandhi,” added Shahdeo.

But political analysts said the local issues dominated the poll discourse among a large section of voters during the elections. “Roti [bread], kapda [cloth] aur makaan [house] are important for all and they take precedence over national issues. Voters across the country have shown that they vote differently for national and state elections,” said LK Kundan, associate professor of the political science department at the Ranchi University.

The elections for the 81-member Jharkhand assembly were held in five phases between November 30 and December 20. The results will be declared on December 23.

As per their pre-poll agreement, the Congress is contesting 31 seats while the JMM 43 seats and the RJD seven.

On the other hand, the BJP and the All Jharkhand Students Union or AJSU Party could not come to an understanding and are fighting the elections separately.

“It is a ploy. They [BJP and AJSU] have been together for five years and will join hands after the elections. The people are seeing through their drama and will hand over a crushing defeat to them,” Sharma said.

Jharkhand election results to be announced today: All you need to know in 10 points.

Source – indiatoday.in

Votes for the Jharkhand Assembly election are being counted with the India Today-Axis My India exit poll predicting 22-32 seats for the ruling BJP, and 38-50 seats for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-Congress alliance. As per the exit poll, JVM-P could win two to four seats while AJSU Party three to five and others four to seven. Jharkhand voted in five phases between November 30 and December 30 to elect a new government in the state.

Here’s all you need to know as results for the elections to the 81-member state assembly are announced.

1. The counting of votes for 81 Jharkhand Assembly seats began at 8 am. The counting of votes is taking place in all the 24 district headquarters. The maximum rounds of counting will take place at Chatra with 28 rounds and lowest round at two seats. Results will emerge by Monday afternoon.

2. Jharkhand is the third state to go to the polls since Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power at the Centre on the back of a landslide BJP victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

3. Jharkhand voted between November 30 and December 30. The overall voter turnout was recorded at 65.17 per cent. Voting passed off peacefully across Jharkhand’s 81 assembly constituencies. This was the first time in the state’s 19-year history that voting took place without any violence by Maoists.

4. The primary contest in the Jharkhand assembly election is between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the alliance between the Congress and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

5. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU) and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) are among the major political parties which are in the fray in the tribal-dominated state.

6. Among key candidates in Jharkhand, Raghubar Das is contesting from the Jamshedpur East seat against his ex-cabinet colleague Saryu Rai and Congress candidate Gourav Vallabh. Former Chief Minister Hemant Soren is the fray from two seats. He is pitted against Social Welfare Minister Louis Marandi at Dumka.

7. Former Chief Minister and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajantarik (JVM-P) president Babulal Marandi is fighting from Dhanwar Assembly seat. The AJSU president, who lost the 2014 Assembly poll, is trying his luck again from Silli seat.

8. Most exit polls for the Jharkhand assembly election have predicted a hung assembly in the state with an advantage to the Congress-JMM alliance. The India Today-Axis My India exit poll had the BJP winning between 22 and 32 seats, and the JMM-Congress alliance between 38 and 50 seats.

9. A party or alliance needs to win at least 41 seats to form government in Jharkhand.

10. After the 2014 Jharkhand assembly election, the BJP formed government under CM Raghubar Das, who went on to become the only chief minister to complete a full five-year term in the state. The BJP ran the government in alliance with the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU). However, the two contested the 2019 Jharkhand assembly elections separately.