The General Election results not only brought a new dawn for the people of the country desperately seeking a change from the idiosyncratic way of governance by the Centre but also left a huge impact on the political equations prevailing in states like Jharkhand. The BJP's almost clean sweep over regional parties in a politically fragile State has strengthened the possibility of a stronger Government at the State level.
While the aspirations of Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party were totally disrespected by the voters of the State, political stalwarts like Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) chief Babulal Marandi and AJSU party head Sudesh Mahto's adventure to fight the general elections with local political strategies brought their parties a huge embarrassment.
Parties that dared to swim against the Modi wave considering themselves indispensible in the politics of Jharkhand got drowned without wining a single seat. Adding insult to injury the performance of their candidates also remained dismal with most of them staying on fourth to sixth positions.
Marandi led JVM, which had two MPs — Dr Ajoy Kumar (Jamshedpur) and Babulal Marandi (Koderma) — in 15th lok Sabha, could not win even a single seat this time, with the party chief himself getting defeated by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha patriarch Shibu Soren in Dumka. Marandi lost the polls with over a margin of 1.5 lakh votes - an event that made the situation quite awkward for the first Chief Minister of the State. JVM's other 'stalwarts' like Dr Ajoy Kumar and Pradeep Yadav too succumbed to miscalculated aspirations of the party as they lost the contest from Jamshedpur and Godda by huge margins of votes — 99876 and 186994 (approx) respectively. The party had chosen to fight from all 14 parliamentary
constituencies of the State.
However, the attempt of Sudesh Mahto-led AJSU party, which had contested the general elections for the first time, proved the biggest fiasco this election as none of the nine candidates contesting the polls, could even touch the runner up level.
Mahto himself remained at the third spot in Ranchi with 142560 votes, while the winning BJP candidate secured 448729 votes.
As per official sources many of the candidates of JVM and AJSU will lose their security deposit for failing to get less than six per cent of the polled votes. For, the margin of votes between them and the winning candidates is in lakhs, they added.
Incidentally, a press communiqué released by JVM on behalf of party chief Babulal Marandi stated that the poll results depicted the annoyance of people towards coalition governments in the country for last 25 years. The mandate was against Congress' lacklustre governance in the past 10 years. Marandi congratulated the new government and expected that it would work for the poor and the downtrodden sections of society.
Far from media glare when Marandi and Sudesh were busy assessing their strategic lapses, people of Jharkhand celebrated a stable government at the Centre with the realisation that they also need to weed out factors responsible for unstable governments in the State for the past 13 years.