New BJP experiment fails in Jharkhand too
New Delhi, December 23 (HS) The opposition which lost support on CAA after point to point rebuttal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has found another issue to highlight against the BJP – the Jharkhand Assembly result announced on Monday.
These parties are combining the Jharkhand result with outcome in Maharashtra and Haryana where assembly elections were held earlier. In these states too the BJP could not get majority.
It may be a coincidence but in all the three states the party had made a new experiment – selected non-dominant caste or group member to head.
The anti-party lobby has become quite active and is calling the result an end of Modi-Shah (home minister Amit Shah) charisma and predicting doom.Neither of them is correct.
In Assembly elections, local factors and leaders count more. Secondly, this is not the first time that the state has got a fractured mandate. More than eight governments have been formed in the state since its formation in 2000. The BJP government led by Raghubar Das was the first government formed in 2014 to last its full five-year term. All others had not lasted more than three years.
The anti-incumbency factor also seems to have worked. Das was not popular among some of the tribal groups.Parting of ways by its old ally, All Jharkhand Students Union, also mattered.
The result is indicative of reemergence of regional parties.It is also suggestive that the people in this part of the country are yet to rise above caste or group.The BJP had gone for a non-tribal (Das) to head the state to end the menace.It appears that they are not yet ready for a change.Maharashtra and Haryana, in the past, had given the same hint.
The result was that the party had to seek support of a regional party (JPP) in Haryana to form a government. It was not its ally before the Assembly elections.In Maharashtra it had to sit in opposition.
An important section in the BJP had seen it coming and, therefore, the party had fired all cylinders towards the end to ensure that there was no action replay of Haryana and Maharashtra in Jharkhand. The five-phase assembly elections had begun in the state on November 30.
The first Assembly election was held in Jharkhand in 2005 in which the BJP had voted-share of nearly 24 per cent. The share increased to 31 per cent in the previous poll (2014). It had shown that many tribals who account for 24 per cent of the population also voted for the party. There was no dramatic change in vote-percentage in this year’s elections.
In the light of the result, however, the BJP may go back to the old and tested formulae.
