Former Jharkhand Chief Minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Champai Soren has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the assembly elections. Champai Soren, popularly known as ‘Tiger’, joining the BJP strengthens the party’s hopes. The reason is that he comes from the tribal community which is 26.2 percent of the total population of the state. Apart from this, Champai Soren is from the Kolhan region, where the BJP could not win a single seat in 2019.
However, his lack of statewide appeal and Hemant Soren playing the tribal identity card, and taking advantage of his arrest, could weaken the BJP’s potential lead to some extent.
Importance of reserved ST seats
Out of the 81 seats in Jharkhand, 28 (35 per cent) are reserved for scheduled tribes. Usually, the party that performs well in these seats forms the government in the state. In the last three elections, the JMM has won the most of these seats. In the 2014 state elections, the BJP and AJSU contested together, while in 2019, the Congress and JMM formed an alliance.
In the 2009 assembly elections, JMM won 10 ST reserved seats, BJP nine, Congress two, and All Jharkhand Students Union won just one seat, while others (six smaller parties) won six seats. BJP and JMM formed a post-poll alliance and formed the government. In 2013, JMM formed the government along with Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and other parties. In these seats, BJP got 24 per cent votes, JMM 20 per cent, Congress 16 per cent and others 36 per cent.
In 2014, JMM won 13 ST reserved seats (+3), BJP 11 (+2), AJSU 2 (+1), and others 2 (-4). Congress (-2) did not win any ST reserved seat. NDA (BJP + AJSU) formed the government with 13 reserved seats. In terms of vote share, BJP won 29 per cent, JMM 30 per cent, Congress 10 per cent, AJSU 3 per cent, and others 28 per cent.
In 2019, JMM won 19 ST reserved seats (+6), BJP two (-9), Congress six (+6), and others won just one (-1). AJSU did not win a single seat (-2). BJP suffered a crushing defeat as UPA won 25 of the 28 reserved seats. In terms of vote share, BJP won 33 per cent, JMM 34 per cent, Congress nine per cent, AJSU six per cent and others, including independents, secured 18 per cent votes. UPA won with 43 per cent vote share. Of the total 47 seats, half of UPA’s win came from ST reserved seats.
The influence of smaller parties and independents declined significantly in these three elections. Their vote share in these seats fell from 36 per cent to 18 per cent. The vote share of the Congress also declined as the party allied with the JMM and contested fewer seats. The JMM increased its vote share by 14 per cent in ST reserved seats between 2009 and 2019, of which seven per cent came from the Congress and others. The BJP also gained nine per cent vote share from other parties. According to an Axis My India exit poll in the 2019 state election, 58 per cent ST voters supported the UPA. The BJP got 21 per cent support, the AJSU six per cent and the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), now merged with the BJP, six per cent.
In the 2024 general elections, India Block (Congress+JMM+RJD) gained a lead in 23 reserved seats, which was in line with the 2019 results. The biggest reason for this was the sympathy wave among the tribals towards the jailed Hemant Soren. BJP gained a lead in five seats.
The BJP is hoping that Champai Soren, who is known for his good image and his contribution to the creation of a separate state as a close aide of Shibu Soren, will be able to attract a section of ST voters.
BJP leads in Kolhan?
Champai Soren has been a six-time MLA from the Seraikela assembly constituency. He won the seat as an independent candidate in a by-election in 1991. Since then, he has won every election (1995, 2005, 2009, 2014, and 2019), except in the year 2000. Seraikela is located in the Kolhan region of Jharkhand, which is the southern part of the state.
There are 14 seats in Kolhan, which includes East and West Singhbhum, and Saraikela districts and also the industrial city of Jamshedpur. It has nine ST reserved seats, which is one-third of the total ST reserved seats in the state. In 2019, JMM won all these seats.
In the 2019 elections, the BJP did not win any seat here. This, along with a poor performance in the ST reserved seats, led to its fortunes sinking in the 2019 elections. Out of a total of 33 seats in the ST reserved seats and the Kolhan region in 2019, the BJP won just two seats.
In 2009, the BJP won six of the 14 seats in Kolhan, while the JMM won four. AJSU and Congress won one seat each, and others won two seats. In 2014, the BJP-AJSU alliance won six seats, while the JMM won seven and the Congress got none. In 2019, the JMM-Congress alliance swept the region, winning 13 of the 14 seats in the region.
Looking at the strength of the 14 seats in the Kolhan region, eight seats are very strong or strong for the JMM as the party has won these seats two or all three times in the last three elections. The BJP has only two strong seats and seven such seats which the party has won at least once in the last three elections. Congress and others have less influence in this region.
The decision to break the BJP-AJSU alliance in 2019 proved costly as the latter secured more votes than the margin of victory in five seats. In terms of vote share, the BJP secured 29 per cent, the JMM-Congress alliance 42 per cent, the AJSU 8 per cent, and the JVM(P) four per cent.
Hypothetically, if the BJP, AJSU, and JVM(P) had contested together, they would have won seven of these 14 seats. Moreover, now with Champai Soren joining the BJP, the party hopes to make significant gains in this region and reverse this trend.
What could be negative for BJP?
Though popular in Kolhan, Champai Soren has little statewide appeal. Like other family-controlled parties, his supporters usually support the dynasty group, and so he will not be able to make a big impact on JMM votes outside Kolhan.
The BJP has long been exploiting the Sarna versus tribal Christian politics in the state. Most of the ST voters who support the BJP are Sarna tribals, who follow nature worship.
However, India Block received the support of the Sarna tribals in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as it promised to fulfill their long-pending demand of implementing the Sarna Code. This is a proposal for a separate religious code, which the BJP is hesitant to implement as it feels that the code is designed to separate the tribals from Hindu society.
Champai Soren had raised this issue even when he was the Chief Minister and had promised to implement a separate code for the Sarna tribal religion in the census. The JMM can take advantage of this to tarnish Champai Soren’s image. Apart from this, his entry can increase factionalism in the state unit, which already includes tribal leaders Babulal Marandi and Arjun Munda, both former Chief Ministers.
Will Champai Soren prove lucky for BJP in Jharkhand? Only time will tell the answer.
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