Jharkhand heads into the Sorens versus BJP battle

Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren and his wife Kalpana Soren (Source: PTI/File)

Jharkhand is notably the first Opposition-ruled state to go to the polls after the landmark Lok Sabha elections, putting it in a different category altogether from Maharashtra, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir, which was under central rule since 2018.

Retaining the mineral-rich eastern province by keeping anti-incumbency at bay is therefore a big challenge for the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress Party-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) coalition which figures prominently in the INDIA bloc.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance will obviously pull out all stops to somehow wrest Jharkhand, as is evident from the no-holds barred campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and quite a few BJP Chief Ministers, including Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma, even before the poll dates were announced.

Electioneering is now picking up ahead of the two-phase polling on November 13 and 20 -- and soon the gloves will be off!

A surprise package called Kalpana Soren

But the BJP, upbeat as it is after capturing Haryana in the Hindi heartland for a third straight term, is up against a 39-year-old tribal woman who is running rings around her opponents amid the intensifying INDIA versus NDA duel in Jharkhand.

Significantly, the lady is a newcomer to politics. But she is giving managers of the BJP’s powerful and well-oiled election machinery sleepless nights as they simply can’t find anyone to match her crowd-pulling charisma. Even neutral observers say that she is able to cast a spell on the electorate, particularly women, who comprise roughly 50 percent of Jharkhand’s 2.69 crore voters, when she ventures out to seek their valuable votes.

The formidable woman is none other than Kalpana Soren, wife of JMM CM Hemant Soren who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in January on money laundering charges and released in July by the High Court, which candidly said there was “reason to believe” that he was not guilty. But even before his return to the helm thanks to judicial intervention, the BJP paid dearly in the parliamentary polls for Soren’s imprisonment as its legality was questioned by tribals who rallied spontaneously behind the JMM.

Fallout of tribal anger

There was such a sympathy wave that NDA’s Lok Sabha seats fell to nine from 12 in 2019; it lost all the five Scheduled Tribes-reserved seats. The mass anger pulled down the NDA’s overall lead from 24 percentage points in the 2019 parliamentary polls to just 8 in 2024.

And, now, Kalpana, who entered electoral politics only a few months ago via an assembly bye-election to stand solidly by her husband who was then rotting in jail, has become a very big thorn in the BJP’s flesh and a rallying point for the JMM-Congress-RJD-CPI (ML) camp.

Ahead of next month’s battle of the ballot in Jharkhand, the contest is still wide open but the INDIA coalition clearly has two things going for it.

Firstly, Kalpana who has become a polestar in her own right in a remarkably short span of time; and secondly tribal support with a vengeance ignited by feelings of hurt pride. The BJP has only itself to blame for turning Hemant into a tribal martyr-hero -- and his feisty better half Kalpana into a heroine! Between them, the couple – who have acquired a halo in the popular imagination -- will shape the outcome of the polls.

In the last election to the 81-strong Jharkhand legislative assembly held in December 2019, the United Progressive Alliance won 47 seats (35.4 percent of votes), above the 41-seat majority mark with the JMM and the Congress Party bagging 30 and 16 seats respectively, while the BJP which fought alone won 25 seats (33.4 percent of votes), resulting in Soren becoming the CM. In the Lok Sabha polls held in mid-2019, the BJP had fared much better. Out of 14 seats, the BJP won 11 and its ally All Jharkhand Students’ Union won one taking the NDA tally to 12. But the picture changed drastically in the state elections just a few months later catapulting Soren to power.

Lok Sabha votes signal BJP’s in a strong position

The INDIA bloc did much better in the 2024 parliamentary polls but still lagged behind the NDA. The BJP won 8 seats and its ally AJSU one giving the NDA only nine seats compared to 12 in 2019, while the INDIA bloc bagged 5 seats with the JMM and the Congress Party winning 3 and 2 respectively. But in terms of assembly segments, the NDA was ahead in 49 – the BJP alone led in 46 – giving the NDA a clear majority. The JMM led in 14 assembly segments and the Congress Party in 15, taking the INDIA bloc’s tally to just 29; independents led in two other assembly segments and the Bahujan Samaj Party in one.

With Hemant and Kalpana riding high; and particularly the JMM CM”s repeated assertion that the BJP has done nothing but loot the eastern state for 20 years seeming to resonate with voters, there is a possibility – however slim – once again of Jharkhandis characteristically plonking for the JMM-Congress Party in the assembly polls after favouring the NDA in Lok Sabha elections, as they did five years ago.