In Jharkhand, a young leader’s growing popularity leaves established parties worried

On October 28, an empty ground in the town of Tenughat in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district filled up as a large crowd gathered to listen to 29-year-old Jairam Mahato.

He is the founder of the newly-formed Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha, which is contesting its first Assembly election in the state. Although the party is just three months old, its leader’s popularity, particularly among the Kurmi Mahato community, is giving established parties reason for concern since it could eat into their votes.

The young politician submitted his nomination papers for the upcoming Jharkhand assembly election, from the Bermo constituency, before addressing the rally in Tenughat. Dressed in a simple T-shirt and track pants, he entered the grounds standing atop a moving Mahindra Scorpio, against the backdrop of the sun sinking into the Tenughat dam.

“Tiger Zindabad!” shouted some in the crowd as they ran toward him, using the epithet by which he is known. Unable to reach the stage because of the crowd, he addressed the gathering from the hood of the vehicle, to much fanfare.

The Kurmi Mahato community, also known just as the Kurmi community, to which Jairam belongs, is considered to be a Mulvasi or native community of Jharkhand. Jairam’s primary political plank is the advocacy of the community’s rights.

“Tell me why Jharkhand became a separate state and against whom we fought for separation?” Jairam asked the crowd in Bermo.

“Bahariya,” or outsiders, some replied.

“We fought for statehood because of the domination and persecution of non-Jharkhandis,” Jairam said. “So how is it that the descendants of those very outsiders are winning elections here today?”

For over two decades, electoral politics in Jharkhand has been dominated by two regional parties, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the All Jharkhand Student’s Union Party, and two national parties, the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Jairam took aim at the non-Jharkhandi origins of his two key contestants in the election from Bermo constituency – Congress MLA Anup Singh and BJP MLA Ravindra Pandey, who are natives of Gaya and Aurangabad in Bihar, respectively. He declared that if these leaders made electoral gains in Jharkhand, it would be akin to the descendants of the British colonial army officer General Reginald Dyer, who ordered the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, winning elections in India.

In the recent Lok Sabha election, Jairam and his party colleagues contested independently because they could not register their party by the required deadline. They performed creditably. Jairam contested from the Giridih constituency and won 3,47,322 votes, finishing at third place after the BJP and JMM candidates. In Ranchi, his colleague Devendra Nath Mahato also came in third place, with 1,32,647 votes.

While the JLKM is not expected to win a large number of seats, Mahato’s growing popularity could make dents into the existing voter bases of older parties, particularly among Kurmi Mahato voters. His aides claimed to Scroll that the party’s gains could be significant since between 15% and 20% of Jharkhand’s voters are Kurmi Mahato.

According to political observers, while the community’s votes are spread across parties, the All Jharkhand Students Union Party, an ally of the BJP, draws crucial support from it, and thus will be most affected by any such gains the new party makes. “Since AJSUP has a large base amongst the Kurmi Mahatos, it stands to suffer the most because of JLKM cutting into their votes in the upcoming election,” said JP Khare, former associate professor of political science at Ranchi University. “However, the INDIA bloc could also suffer in a few seats.”

Conversations with voters at the rally suggested that the new party could benefit from growing disenchantment with established regional parties. “We have seen the same parties in power for many years, like JMM and AJSUP,” said Bhagirath Mahato, an elderly man at the rally. “Many are thinking this time that there is a new face in politics, raising issues that are close to us, why not give him a chance?”

If the JLKM wins even a few seats, in the event of a hung assembly, it could have an outsized impact in deciding who forms the next government in Jharkhand. “It will depend on the moment and the circumstances,” Jairam told Scroll when asked about his preferences for a political alliance. “We have been approached by leaders of both the BJP and the Congress, but we haven’t made any commitments yet.”

Who is Jairam Mahato?

Jairam was born in 1995 in Maantand village, in Dhanbad district’s Topchanchi block. His father was an organiser in the movement for statehood for Jharkhand. Jairam was only two years old when his father died from head injuries sustained at a protest. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in Amdiha village, in Bokaro district. He studied English literature in college, and is currently enrolled as a PhD candidate at Binod Bihari Mahato Koyalanchal university in Dhanbad.

“We feel we can put our faith in Jairam because he too is the son of a common man, and he raises the common people’s issues,” said Sristhidar Mahato, a former JMM party worker who switched to the JLKM earlier this year.

Jairam first attracted public attention as a student leader who was a skilled public speaker. Among the first issues he took up, in late December 2021, was a notification of the Jharkhand government that included Bhojpuri and Magahi as regional languages in which the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission exams could be taken. Local natives, particularly students, protested this move in large numbers, most prominently in the districts of Bokaro, Giridih and Dhanbad.

They argued that the three languages were primarily spoken in Bihar and that their inclusion was an indication of the domination in the region of Bihari settlers, who would snatch away jobs meant for locals. Jairam, along with other student leaders, formed the Jharkhandi Bhasha Sangharsh Samiti to address this problem. The government finally rolled back the inclusion of these languages in the three districts, but retained them in other districts closer to Bihar.

The organisation also raised a longstanding demand of many residents of the region, that khatian, or land records, from 1932, be used as the basis for jobs in Jharkhand – that is, only those who could show family land records dating back at least to that year would be eligible for jobs in the state. Supporters of the demand argued that a significant number of Bihari and Bengali settlers socio-economically dominated native Jharkhandis, and that such a domicile policy would help counter this.

At the time, a video interview of Jairam in Dhanbad went viral – among other matters, he spoke of the controversy over the inclusion of the new languages in the government exam. “That video helped me build recognition across the state,” he said. “After this, I was invited for more interviews and public events which people would attend in thousands. The public soon began approaching me with their problems and I would help them out.”

While Kurmis have agitated for protections for locals, in some spheres, they are seen as attempting to encroach on the entitlements of other communities. This problem has its roots in the fact that while in the colonial era up to 1931 they were categorised as a tribal community, in independent India, they were categorised as an Other Backward Class community.

This has been a serious point of contention. For decades, Kurmis across Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal have demanded that the community be categorised as a Scheduled Tribe. But Adivasi communities have strongly opposed this demand, and argue that it represents an attempt to dominate reservations under the Scheduled Tribe category.

Jairam takes a diplomatic approach to the issue. He alleges that Kurmis were denotified by the government so that their land would not have special protection and could be taken up for various industrial projects.

“On the lines of the EWS, we could create a new constitutional category,” he said, referring to the Central government’s move to amend the constitution and introduce reservations for those classified under the “economically weaker sections” category. He suggested that the government could create a new category such as “agricultural tribes” for communities like the Kurmis, which would ensure that they received certain benefits, such as reservations, without eating into those of other communities.

The party’s views

In his speeches, Jairam often mentions the fact that while Jharkhand holds 40% of India’s mineral wealth, it has long fared poorly in various development indices. “The bureaucrats and ministers have all our wealth,” he said. “The day we are able to release this wealth from their clutches, nobody in this state will remain hungry and naked. We want a new politics where people move away from personal benefit and work for the people.”

This stance on corruption finds mention in JLKM’s 75-point election manifesto, where it promises to establish anti-corruption bureaus at the district and block levels. It also promises to implement a domicile-based employment policy and end the practice of hiring workers from outside the state for local jobs, which has a long history in Jharkhand. It also states that any leaders of the party elected as MLAs will donate 75% of their salaries to the public.

Of these, the promises to secure jobs for locals was echoed the most prominently among party workers as well as voters Scroll spoke to. “My son has studied engineering but he is roaming the streets today because there are no jobs,” said Sristhidar Mahato, the party worker. “Lakhs of people migrate from Jharkhand every year because they can’t find jobs here. It is high time for change.”

Khushbu Kumari, a first-time voter from Lalpania and member of the Kurmi Mahato community, said that she first heard Mahato’s speeches on YouTube and decided to attend the rally to hear him in person. She was accompanied by her friends Shivani and Sunita, both also from the Mahato community. “We are from Lalpania, which has a thermal power station,” said Shivani. “All our parents work as farmers for a living. Even though there is a thermal power station in Lalpania, hardly any locals got jobs there. It is mostly outsiders who work at the plant.”

Shivani and Sunita had bachelor’s degrees in commerce from a local college. When asked if they would apply for jobs, they smiled hesitantly. “We have to travel so far to give exams and then they get leaked,” said Shivani, referring to recent allegations that the Jharkhand General Graduate Level Combined Competitive Exams had been leaked. “Perhaps if Jairam comes to power then it’s possible that something will change for our people,” said Khushbu.

Given that JLKM was founded by student leaders, it is unsurprising that such problems of students and young people find mention in its manifesto. In the document, the party promises to establish a state-level student commission that will address various needs of students, including the problem of paper leaks. It also promises free education for all women from the “KG to PG” levels and digital libraries at all panchayats.

The two constituencies

Jairam is contesting from two assembly constituencies – Dumri and Bermo.

Since 2005, Dumri has elected the late JMM leader Jagarnath Mahato as its MLA in every election. After his death in 2023, his wife Baby Devi won the Dumri bye-election.

At a tea shop in Dumri town’s centre, opinions were divided about who would win the coming election. “While Jagarnath was a grassroots leader, his wife won the bye-election because of sympathy votes,” said one young local supporter of Jairam. “She doesn’t have the kind of connection with the masses that Jagarnath did. Meanwhile, Jairam has very quickly won people’s hearts with his fervent speeches.”

However, the older men present were dismissive of Jairam. “The main contenders here are JMM and AJSUP,” said one elderly man. “You need money to win elections. Only the youth will vote for Jairam.”

Bermo’s current MLA, meanwhile, is the Congress’s Kumar Jaimangal Singh, also known as Anup Singh, who won the bye-election in 2020 after the death of his father Rajendra Prasad Singh. The BJP’s contender is Ravindra Kumar Pandey a five-time member of parliament from Giridih.

In an interview with Scroll, Jairam criticised his opponents here as outsiders, and argued that their parties had erased leadership by native Jharkhandis in Koyalanchal – a term used for the coal-rich districts of Bokaro, in which Bermo falls, Dhanbad, Giridih and Hazaribagh. He also addressed this point at his nomination rally.

“I could have stood for an easier seat, but I have come to contest from Bermo to erase the fear inside people and create the pathway to your freedom,” he said. He alleged that politicians in the region had ties to the coal mafia and had grabbed land for personal gain. If elected, he said, he would wrest the mines free from the mafia's control and ensure that the wealth generated from the mines would reach the common people.

Apart from Jairam’s own electoral battles, the party’s other most prominent contest will play out in Ranchi district’s Silli constituency. The All Jharkhand Student’s Union Party leader Sudesh Mahato has won the seat four times since Jharkhand’s formation, and is standing again, under the National Democratic Alliance umbrella. JLKM, meanwhile, is fielding its vice president and second-most prominent leader, Devendra Nath Mahato, who had placed third from the Ranchi Lok Sabha seat in the recent election, with 1,32,647 votes.

While critics have argued that the JLKM only enjoys the support of the youth of the Kurmi Mahato community, and most people I spoke at the rally did belong to the community, many supporters from other communities were also present.

“This isn’t just a party of Mahatos – JLKM has been started to fulfil the promises of the separate state of Jharkhand,” said Nishar Ahmed, a Muslim local from Bermo accompanied by a large group from his community who had come to support Jairam’s rally. “The burning issues in Jharkhand have never been allowed to become part of the national dialogue. It is Jairam Mahato who can ensure that our issues reach the national level.”