The Bharatiya Janata Party’s election campaign in Jharkhand pitting Adivasis against Muslims failed to dent support for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led coalition in the state’s Adivasi regions and constituencies, Scroll’s analysis of the Assembly election results shows.
The JMM and its ally, the Indian National Congress, won 27 of the 28 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes candidates, two more than the 2019 Assembly polls. The alliance also improved its vote share in 23 of these constituencies.
Similarly, in the Adivasi-dominated regions of Santal Pargana and Kolhan, the JMM-led coalition retained its advantage. In 2019, it had swept all 16 Scheduled Tribes constituencies in the two regions. This time, it won 15 of the 16 seats, losing a sole seat to former Chief Minister Champai Soren who defected from the JMM to the BJP in August this year.
The BJP had accused the JMM-led government of letting Muslim “infiltrators” overrun Adivasi regions, undermining the interests of the state’s indigenous communities. A campaign video even showed skull-cap wearing men and women in burqas invading a bungalow of a JMM supporter. The Election Commission of India asked the party to take down the video, which it said violated the model code of conduct.
The BJP’s divisive campaign appears to have left voters unimpressed. In Santal Pargana, the region bordering West Bengal, where the party’s infiltration narrative took shape, its tally dropped from four seats in 2019 to just one in this election.
The JMM-led INDIA Alliance, which apart from the Congress, also includes the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation in the state, won 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, up from 47 in the 2019 election. The BJP’s numbers came down from 25 seats in 2019 to 21 seats. Its allies, the All Jharkhand Students Union Party, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and the Janata Dal (United) won one seat each.
Santal Pargana
Santal Pargana, where Adivasis form about a third of the population, was the focus of a high octane campaign by the BJP. The party’s top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleged that Bangladeshi and Rohingya “infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women as part of a sinister conspiracy to take away Adivasi land and alter the region’s demography.
On the ground, we found these claims did not hold up, and that both Adivasi and non-Adivasi voters were more concerned with civic issues than the threat of infiltrators.
The election result bears this out. The JMM won all seven constituencies reserved for ST candidates in the region.
In Barhait, incumbent Chief Minister Hemant Soren improved his vote share from 53.49% in 2019 to 58.95% in 2024. In Maheshpur, incumbent JMM MLA Stephen Marandi improved his performance by 6 percentage points.
In Borio, BJP candidate Lobin Hembrom, formerly with the JMM, who had won the constituency a total of five times since 1990 lost to a fresh MLA candidate Dhananjay Soren by 10% or 19,273 votes.
Kolhan
In the southern region of Kolhan, home to Munda and Ho Adivasi communities, the BJP was able to win a seat – but only by engineering a defection.
Former JMM leader Champai Soren, who was interim chief minister earlier this year when Hemant Soren was in prison, joined the BJP in August. Contesting elections on a BJP ticket, he retained the Seraikela assembly constituency with a vote share of 44.27%, defeating his JMM rival Ganesh Mahali, formerly with the BJP, by 20,447 votes.
This is also the only Scheduled Tribe seat in the state that the BJP has won this election.
Except for the two seats of Potka and Kharsawan in the Kolhan division, JMM and Congress candidates won a higher vote share this time compared to the 2019 election. In Chaibasa, Majhgaon, Jaganathpur and Manoharpur constituencies, the JMM and INC candidates vote share increased by 8-12%.
Adivasi support intact
Similar trends can be seen in the remaining 12 seats reserved for ST candidates – 11 of which fall in South Chotanagpur and one in Palamu. The INDIA alliance won all of them.
In 2019, the BJP had won the Khunti and Torpa constituencies. It lost both to the JMM this time. The Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), which merged with the BJP in 2020, had won the Mandar constituency in 2019. This time, the Congress candidate Shilpi Neha Tirkey defeated her BJP rival Sunny Toppo in Mandar by 22,803 votes.
The INDIA coalition’s candidates improved their vote share in 10 of these 12 seats. In three seats – Khijri, Kolebira and Lohardaga – the vote share of INDIA bloc’s candidates increased by over 9%.
The Assembly results confirm a trend seen in the Lok Sabha election held earlier this year, when the JMM-led coalition had done exceedingly well in seats reserved for candidates from the Scheduled Tribes. This was attributed in part to Adivasi anger over Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s imprisonment on corruption charges.
To counter this sentiment, in the run-up to the Assembly polls, the BJP had taken to attacking Hemant Soren on grounds that he was only Adivasi while asking for votes from people and not when they needed his support for their rights.
However, this gambit appears to have not worked. In a popular video clip on social media, an Adivasi voter sitting in a neighbourhood full of BJP flags tells a news reporter that the party had paid locals to put them up, but they would actually vote for the JMM.
Furthermore, the BJP’s own legacy from its previous term in government of attempting to dilute two important laws protecting Adivasi lands – the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act – helped the JMM project it as an anti-Adivasi party. The amendments, which were rejected by then governor Droupadi Murmu, would have enabled the use of tribal owned land for commercial purposes.
Beyond support from Adivasi voters, who form less than a third of the electorate, there are broader reasons why the INDIA alliance has managed to draw more voters to its fold.
Starting 2019, the JMM-led government introduced a number of welfare policies which seem to have cemented its support base among the rural poor.
The coalition government widened the social security net, waived off electricity bills of around 39.44 lakh low-income consumers, and implemented its own housing scheme granting better funds than the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
Months before the election, in August, it launched the Maiya Samman Yojana, a direct benefit transfer scheme which provides Rs 1,000 per month to women between the ages of 21 and 50.
Meanwhile, what worked to the BJP’s detriment was the failure to officially project a candidate for the chief minister’s post. It also relied heavily on non-Jharkhandi leaders in its election campaign, often pushing local and Adivasi leaders to the sidelines.
As a result, a large number of Adivasi voters who have traditionally supported the JMM, stuck by the party, and it was able to attract more voters to its side. The JMM’s vote share went up from 18.72% in the 2019 election to 23.44% in this election.
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