Eight years after Babulal Marandi left the BJP, apparently feeling hurt with the central leaders’ ‘step-motherly’ attitude, and launched Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) to fight ‘bhay’, ‘bhookh’ and ‘bhrashtachar’, Babulal Marandi’s political career stands at the crossroads. Six of his eight MlAs have joined the BJP bandwagon.
Though politics is a game of possibilities and it’s difficult to write off a politician, but the way Marandi with unfinished business and a deep sense of hurt, conducted himself so far, has led some to predict the end of the road for him. A geography graduate, Marandi gave up his teaching job in 1981 because of a clerk who demanded a bribe to release his salary. “I quit the Government job because I would have compromised my dignity had I paid a bribe for my legitimate salary. I quit BJP because I would have compromised people’s faith in me had I continued with them,” he once told this writer.
That resoluteness might sum up Marandi’s ‘can break me but not bend’ attitude. A primary school teacher who became the State’s first Chief Minister in November 2000, Marandi has seen the risks and opportunities of politics. In March 2003, he had to step down as a BJP Chief Minister because his coalition partner revolted against him. The BJP replaced him with Arjun Munda. Marandi quit the party in 2006 to launch JVM.
When four MlAs who had joined his party returned to BJP before the 2009 Assembly polls, people wrote Marandi off. But JVM bagged 28 per cent of votes and 11 seats fighting election in alliance with the Congress. Marandi’s party, however, failed to win any seat in the State as BJP won 12 out of 14 seats in the 2014 lS elections in the Modi wave. Ahead of 2014 Assembly elections, the JVM was wracked by defections - eight of 11 walked out, seven to the BJP. Yet the JVM’s eight seats represented a major victory for Marandi.
So, the BJP negotiators got into action offering Marandi to merge his party with two Cabinet berths and his ‘suitable rehabilitation’ in Delhi. Marandi even rushed to Delhi and held parley with Amit Shah but did not agree for merger. Instead, he wanted to extend his party’s support which Shah did not agree.
Marandi, however, either misread the mood of the MlAs or just played an ostrich. Most of the MlAs who were elected on the JVM ticket had no loyalty towards the party. Most of them had fought elections on the JVM ticket when they were denied ticket by their original party and it was feared that they will be lured by the BJP.
His detractors say that Marandi was in total control of Pradeep Yadav. Pravin Singh, who quit the JVM as general secretary, a couple of days back says,” Ek aadmi ke karan pure party ko duba diye.” A political analyst also pointed out that a party like JVM without any core vote bank or ideology could never survive for a long time. “It was a group of ambitious persons with individual agenda. The MlAs had won on their own,” he pointed out.
During past eight years outside the BJP, Marandi wanted to replace JMM as the regional party and concentrated in Santhal Pargana. However, he utterly failed in his endevour and whatever success he got was in non-reserved seats only.