The ‘Janta Parivar’ that is in offing at the national stage received a severe jolt in Jharkhand poll results aftermath.
Failing to secure even a single seat in the State parties in the grand alliance in making primarily against the BJP Government failed to pass in its first test following the idea was mooted after ‘successful’ experiment in the Bihar by polls. Though, reacting to the clean sweep the JD-U-RJD combine has been subjected to, former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar played down the conclusion. “We had not fought in a systematic manner in Jharkhand. On many seats, candidates were fielded against each other. I also held just one election rally in Jharkhand,” he said defending the snub.
Both the regional satraps from Bihar had fielded 30 candidates altogether in the State which include 19 from the lalu Prasad-headed RJD while 11 from the Nitish Kumar-led JD-U. Interestingly, both the parties fighting Jharkhand election taking Congress along fielded candidates against each other on as many as four seats. As expected but quite disappointing for the major factions of the ‘Janta Parivar’, none of its candidate except State JD-U chief Jaleshwar Mahto faired even above fourth positions.
The fate of the one of the most important cog into the combine’s wheel RJD dipped even further with all its five sitting MlAs biting dust this time. Out of its 19 candidates into the arena four could manage to secure second positions which included heavyweights Suresh Paswan (Deoghar), Sanjay Prasad Yadav (Godda), Annapurna Devi (Koderma) and Girinath Singh from Garhwa.
“This is bemel (unreasonable) alliance of the parties who have been rejected over the time from the people at national stage. Some of them have some relevance in some pockets. Voters understand that the show of unity is just to fool them by presenting a face against popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” said BJP Jharkhand president Ravindra Rai.
The desperation to fight against all the odds and justify the relevance of the unity lalu Prasad Yadav had camped in Jharkhand for major part of the campaign process and addressed over 10 election meetings. Nevertheless, going along the Congress also proved detrimental for the so called ‘Janta Parivar’. “It is hard to believe the strategy. On the one side, they take along only old factions of the original Janta Dal while at the same time also enter into alliance with Congress at State level. This is contradictory and confusing,” said Gopal Krishna Patar who has been Jharkhand JD-U president previously.