When The Pioneer toured heavily naxal-infested areas of Chatra, Palamau, lohardaga and Khunti during the polls a clear sense had emerged. Voters probably for the first time in the history of parliamentary democracy were talking about Sarju Action plan and its impact on their lives, improvement in electricity, road and small bridges over anything, even over fear of the red terror. The sense has surely converted into a reality with polls results for the four constituencies are out on Friday.
Chatra considered as den of the Maoists negated all the fear psychosis and issues related to caste, religion and regionalism while pressing the mandate in the favour of Narendra Modi’s model of development.
They not only voted for a strong leadership but also a strong Government at the Centre.
“People do not even know Sunil Singh very well. But one thing was clear in their mind that they are voting for the BJP and Narendra Modi. They want development for the area that has been one of most backward districts of the country. They know that it has led naxalism in the area. The win for Sunil Singh is like asking him and Modiji to do goods for Chatra,” said Durga Prasad Gupta, a BJP worker and in-charge of a party office in Chatra.
Sunil Singh’s victory margin remained over 1.7 lakh votes. The positive thinking and optimism for the saffron party was so strong that Congress candidate and heavyweight Dheeraj Prasad Sahu could barely manage second spot and remained slightly ahead of JVM’s first timer Neelam Devi.
The tsunami for not only a change but positive change was so forceful that the candidate given by Congress-JMM-RJD combine could not put up even a decent fight against ‘outsider’ Vishnu Dayal Ram, a former IPS in Palamau. Ram had just one relation with the reserved constituency and that of his in-laws.
“I was confident about my victory. Besides my clean image I presented a vision before the people about development of the area which remained in complete disarray since time immemorial. I have been backed very strongly by the support for Narendra Modi,” said busy VD Ram over phone from Daltonganj.
The BJP candidate was ahead by 2.6 lakh votes most of the times. Notably, coalition candidate Manoj Kumar has had a tainted past. He had been disqualified from lok Sabha for asking question in lieu of
money scam.
“When you have clear cut demand for clean governance and anti-corruption mood prevailing throughout the country it was surprising that the coalition parties could not find a clean candidate! Days for the politics of this kind have come to end,” said Gokul Basant, a local journalist from Palamau.
Similar anti-Congress sentiment prevailed at Khunti as well where the party fighting again under coalition failed to fare even second. lesser known Jharkhand Party and its candidate Ainos Ekka, who had courted controversy for taking open support of the proscribed organisation PlFI, managed the second spot. While the six-time MP and longtime Deputy Speaker of the lok Sabha Karia Munda secured the seat despite so many adversaries.
The constituency is quite known for naxal activities and some groups including PlFI had issued diktat in the favour of Ekka for which AAP’s Dayamani Barla had lodged police complaints as well. Despite Karia Munda facing a kind of internal factionalism in the form of his partyman Neelkanth Singh Munda whose brother Kalicharan Munda was contesting on Congress ticket, the former secured seventh win in a row and with handsome margin of 92248 votes.
It is worth mentioning here that some of the booths in the constituency had seen complete blackout in the wake of naxals giving boycott call in 2009 but this time around there were long queues of young first time voters polling for a change.
The BJP secured another win, though close, at lohardaga. Congress old timer Rameshwar Oraon after a long drawn battle lost to BJP’s Sudarsan Bhagat with a narrow margin.