A Modi Wave in Jharkhand?

Published here
Sahibganj, April 24

As the three-phased voting in Jharkhand came to a close on Thursday, the BJP - which had won eight seats in 2009 and retains seven now - remains in contention in all 14 seats.

With the possibility of a clean sweep looming - the party won 12 in 1996 as well as '98 - state-based leaders are quick to attribute it to a "Modi Wave." The question assumes significance because of the adivasis in the state, who comprise 26.2 per cent of the population.

ADIVASIS

Have the adivasis voted for Modi? The definitive answer will come only after May 16, but even the state BJP answers in the negative. Khunti, which has the maximum proportion of adivasi population - at 73.3 per cent - might elect BJP's Kariya Munda, but its voters have done so seven times already.

A "wave" can be substantiated if the party wins in areas where it has traditionally found the going tough. In that sense, the Dumka and Rajmahal - the former a JMM stronghold, the latter, a Congress one - in the Santhal Pargana region are critical for the BJP. In both constituencies, the BJP claims "padhe-likhe" [literate, educated] Santhalis will vote for Narendra Modi. A similar claim is made by the JVM(P), which claims the padhe-likhe adivasis will vote for Babulal Marandi. Either way, a new votebank from among the adivasis - identified as the tribal middle class by anthropologists - is emerging and is up for grabs.

However, in Dumka as well as Rajmahal, the BJP depends on extraneous factors for victory. In Dumka, there is the hope that Sunil Soren, who lost to Shibu Soren by only 18,812 votes in 2009, will win when Babulal Marandi splits the JMM's Santhal-Muslim votebank. The BJP hopes to retain the diku [outisder, caste Hindu] votes and that Marandi will not eat into it. At Rajmahal, with significant number of Muslims, the party hopes that the RSS's 20-odd years of work among the Santhals have Sanskritised them enough to split the JMM votebank. Here, Narendra Modi could act as a catalyst in bringing over these Sanskritised Santhals to vote along with dikus, their former exploiters.

DALITS

In Chatra, a district where 32.6 percent of the population is Scheduled Caste, this reporter could not find any dalit at the March 27 Modi rally despite talking to about 20 people. No political party except the CPI-ML considers the dalits, 12.1 per cent of the population, as a votebank. While there seemed to be an upper caste-OBC Modi wave in Chatra, the CPI-ML's strategy seems to have paid off, as it is reportedly giving the BJP sweaty palms in Koderma, where the namesake district has only one per cent of adivasis, 15.2 per cent dalits and where Bihar-like caste politics prevail.

MUSLIMS

One of the best questions to ask voters this election was, "Why will you vote?" At Pakur district's Rahaspur village, Ashraful Haque gave the most complicated answer, "Some Muslims here might have even vote for the BJP, because only local BJP leaders help us when we go to them with our problems. But not this time. We don't want our votes to help Narendra Modi. We are scared," he said.

This fear was used by Congress's Ranchi candidate Subodh Kant Sahay, who called a meeting of Muslim mohalla leaders and managed to get an assurance of votes. The elders reportedly refused to take any gifts in return. This, despite Muslims being angry with Sahay as he did little for the evicted residents of the encroachment called Islam Nagar in Ranchi city.

A mere claim of a Modi Wave was not enough in the third phase, as Bihar-based leader Giriraj Singh's April 18 comments in Deoghar and Bokaro about Modi's opponents having to go to Pakistan was clearly intended to unite the caste Hindus in the Santhal Pargana region, with a significant Muslim population.

WHAT SHOULD A WAVE LOOK LIKE?

Ideally a wave could mean that castes and communities that stayed away in 2009 were now rooting for the BJP. There seemed to be a rural-urban divide to this: significant in Jharkhand as 76 per cent of the population lives in rural areas. In urban Jamshedpur, the trading communities and upper middle class seemed to be shifting allegiance over to the BJP after supporting the JVM's Ajay Kumar in the 2011 by-poll. The poll percentage also shot up from 51-52 in the last two elections to 65 per cent.

Except for the Telis - the caste to which Modi belongs - the BJP was not expecting any new castes from the rural areas in its bouquet. The upper caste-OBC Modi Wave in Chatra may not have been a wave, after all - they have voted for the BJP before, too. In that sense, the Modi Wave in Jharkhand was essentially a re-strengthening of the BJP's core votebanks: polarise along Hindu-Muslim fault lines and then ensure that its votebanks remained un-split and delivering maximum votes.

This fortification of votebanks was visible in Hazaribagh and Palamu, where highly-qualified candidates - Harvard graduate Jayant Sinha and former DGP V.D. Ram - had to resort to praying for a Modi Wave. Their prayers could have been answered in a literal manner, as anecdotal evidence suggests that the Ram Navami celebrations organised by Sangh Parivar organisations could have attracted voters who might have gone elsewhere. The enthusiasm around a Modi Wave visibly activated the cadres too, whose work could explain why Jamshedpur recorded an unexpectedly high turnout.