The decisive victory of the ‘Mahagatbandhan’ in Jharkhand (JMM, Congress and RJD) is an important turning point in State and National electoral politics, say political experts. Now a pattern is evident- affirmation of the regional political parties in State matters, and ascendance of local issues and people’s aspirations over lofty sloganeering generally at the national level. Two adjacent maps depicting the slump of BJP in the states since a peak in 2017 was the common features of almost all the newspapers, they added.
One is tempted to read in the Jharkhand results a decisive “no” for supposedly populist move to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, verdict on the Ayodhya dispute and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 – all part of the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, said a senior Congress leader.
“The portents are, however, more ominous. Jharkhand is the fifth State after Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan to deny power to BJP. People want to show how disappointed are they at the abject failure of BJP in addressing real issues in their lives- poverty, scarcity, price-rise, increasingly difficult living conditions in cities and villages alike, and joblessness with no ray of hope in sight. To this adds the precarious agriculture situation- steadily decreasing returns from agriculture, abysmally slow change for the better. Significantly, these contributing factors have major implications for the upcoming Delhi and Bihar elections and, may be, for national politics,” he added.
Congress insiders said that the contributing factors for BJP’s defeat and victory of the JMM-Congress-RJD combine are rooted in the ability of the winners to touch the soul of the people. “After a long time, Congress has been able to discover its roots and connect with the people of the State. This should herald in the real sense the resurgence of Congress. One of the architects of this rejuvenation, veteran Subodhkant Sahay, should take heart from the fact that he withstood the Modi-Shah carpet bombing with aplomb. The defeated Modi-Shah combine has conceded that the absence of an effective leadership at the local level had been their major failing. All the recent State election results have shown clearly that para-landing of leaders from other places does not in any manner compensate the effectiveness of a strong local leader,” said a leader.
“Mahagathbandhan’s facile victory is in no small measure a result of Sahay’s meticulous planning based on his acute understanding of the social dynamics of the region. His well thought strategy to approach people at the roots and avoid pomp and show paid him rich dividends. A key matter was the transfer of tribal land to Adani and the consequential economic deprivation of the adivasis. Sahay, craftily articulated party’s concern and reaped results. It goes to his credit that he did not waste either energy or time in raising high edifices of nationalist ideals which do not answer the call of hunger and provide any solace to the socially-economically deprived common Jharkhandi Adivasi. Sahay is from Ranchi and has spent a lifetime of his political career in intervening and mediating in social and political issues of importance for the state of Jharkhand,” said another leader.
“The diminutive but extremely effective method of reading peoples’ psyche, identifying critical fundamental issues affecting them and then accessing people directly or through meaningful social groups was Sahay’s master strategy which floored BJP’s money and manpower,” he said.
BJP was not able to read the irksome mood of the people against the undemocratic arrests of Adivasis who participated in the ‘Pathalgadi Movement,’ the misadventure of pushing amendments to the Chotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act and Santhal Parganas Tenancy (SPT) and the passage of the divisive Religious Freedom Bill, 2017, said Congress insiders.
It is also the general feeling among the key political analysts that the bonding together of Mahagathbandhan and its joint political strategy became possible due primarily to the trust reposed and reciprocated by Sahay, said sources.