Party may ink ties with other regional outfits
After days of suspense and negotiation, the BJP on Monday sealed a pre-poll electoral alliance with the AJSU by leaving eight seats to the Sudesh Mahto-led regional outfit in Jharkhand. The five-phase Assembly polls for the 81-member Assembly will begin on November 25 and conclude on December 20.
The deal was inked after AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto met BJP president Amit Shah and both sides sealed the tie-up following a recommendation of BJP’s State unit, said BJP general secretary Bhupinder Yadav, who is also in-charge of the party’s Jharkhand affairs.
“The BJP has decided to tie up with like-minded parties in Jharkhand and will contest the upcoming Assembly polls with the AJSU. Talks between the AJSU and the State BJP leadership were on and they have been successfully concluded,” Yadav told reporters.
He said BJP leaders Raghuvar Das and Arjun Munda had been in talks with AJSU leaders Sudesh Mahto and Chandra Prakash Chaudhary for a pre-poll understanding.
Not ruling out further understanding with some smaller players in the State, Yadav said talks with some such players were on and a tie-up may be finalised for a few seats. He, however, ruled out an understanding with Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM).
The talks between the BJP and the AJSU had nearly failed on Saturday when the AJSU was adamant on contesting more seats and was not ready to give up its claim for the Hatia seat, which it had won in the last Assembly polls.
However, after the BJP announced its candidates for 63 seats, including Hatia, on Sunday, Mahto hurriedly left for Delhi for another round of talks. According to party insiders, while a section of the leaders were in favour of going it alone, Rajya Sabha member from Jharkhand Parimal Nathwani played a key role in convincing the saffron brigade to take the AJSU on board. The AJSU had supported Nathwani in the Rajya Sabha elections in January this year.
Party sources said Mahto was adamant to contest Tamar seat, but climbed down after Amit Shah expressed the party’s inability to leave more seats for the AJSU.
The list of Assembly seats which went into AJSU’s quota includes lohardaga, Ramgarh, Silli, Chandankiyari Jugsalai (Its sitting seats) and Barkagaon. The BJP will decide on the other two seats after talking to the State leaders.
BJP veterans, on the other hand, have cited different reasons behind the deal. “It was a necessity rather than a compulsion for the party as the BJP wanted to placate the dominant OBC voters in the State,” said a senior party leader.
Following the deal, differences erupted in both the parties at the State level. Hatia MlA Naveen Jaiswal reportedly threatened to quit the AJSU after discussing the issue with the party workers on Wednesday, the last day of filing nomination for the polls.
Similarly, former BJP MlA Satyanand Bhokta from Chatra on Monday joined the JVM after his name did not appear in the list of 63 candidates released by the party headquarters in New Delhi.
A large number of local leaders from both parties expressed their anger for the alliance. A number of BJP workers went to the party’s State headquarters to lodge their protest, while workers of the AJSU party sat on dharna near party chief Sudesh Mahto’s residence on Tuesday evening. Discontented BJP workers will also stage a sit-in near party headquarter on Tuesday.
Notably, senior BJP leaders, including Yashwant Sinha, Ranchi MP Ram Tahal Choudhary, Raghubar Das, Saryu Roy and others, had also said that there was no need for the party to forge an alliance with any regional outfit.
The BJP had secured a 44 per cent vote share in the lok Sabha polls, up from around 28 per cent in the last Assembly polls in 2009. AJSU, on the other hand, secured 6 to 7 per cent vote share in the 2009 State polls.