Despite getting a thumping majority in the Assembly elections in Jharkhand, celebrations at the party offices of BJP and its alliance partner AJSU remained comparatively subdued after the defeat of the former Chief Minister Arjun Munda and AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto. The intensity with which celebrations were started in the morning, gradually started fading down with Munda getting closer to his defeat.
“It’s really unfortunate that Mundaji lost his seat. It was due to the negligence on his part as he trusted more on his men and kept engaged himself campaigning for others during the elections,” said a senior BJP leaders requesting anonymity. It is likely that the party leadership will be given some other responsibility matching to his stature, he added.
As soon as the trends started coming in, much confident BJP workers started dancing on the drum beats blocking the road before the party office due to which the road was blocked for some time. But as soon as the reports of Munda lagging behind came in, drum beats slowed down which finally was stopped by afternoon.
But the BJP cadres however, were not ready to accept the fact that Munda was trailing behind. “This is just a trend, let the results get announced then only we will talk to you,” said an exhausted BJP worker. Meanwhile, the workers as well as the media persons were spotted asking about the seats on which BJP was leading. A huge screen was installed in the BJP office for the workers while the party officials remained stick to the TV sets for the whole day.
But, as soon as the BJP alliance touched the figure of 40, extensive firecrackers were started being fired by the party workers and also distributed sweets among each other. The workers also started dancing shouting slogans of ‘Narendra Modi zindabad.’ The party workers marched right from their office to Firayalal Chowk dancing on the tune of drumbeats and distributing sweets among the people on the way. “We fired crackers worth Rs 4-5 lakh for over three and a half hours,” said state BJP Spokesperson Ajay Maroo.
According to Maroo, over 100 hoardings of thanks-giving are being put on the streets of Ranchi in order to express gratitude towards the people of Jharkhand. “As people of this state have expressed confidence on us, we will only focus on development during the next five years in order to come up to their expectations,” added Maroo.AJSU office on the other hand, despite remaining crowded for the day remained reasonably quite without any signs of celebration. Party supporters pooled in for the whole day with mixed expressions, not knowing what to do or say.