In Santhal Pargana’s Jamtara, BJP shapes a battle to encapsulate its ‘infiltrator’ rhetoric

Party workers in Jharkhand say this is aimed at adding a larger proportion of Adivasi voters to its existing base of non-Adivasi Hindu communities across caste groups in the unreserved seat; JMM founder Shibu Soren’s daughter-in-law Sita Murmu Soren of the BJP is contesting against Congress’s incumbent MLA Irfan Ansari

In Santhal Pargana’s Jamtara Assembly constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s centrepiece of “Bangladeshi infiltration” threatening every aspect of tribal life — Roti, Beti, Mati — is coming to life in the way it is framing the battle between former Jharkhand Mukti Morcha legislator and JMM founder Shibu Soren’s daughter-in-law Sita Murmu Soren, who has been pitted by the party against Congress’s incumbent Irfan Ansari, who has won the seat in the last two consecutive Assembly elections.

This framing of the BJP in Jamtara is being aimed at adding a larger proportion of Adivasi voters to its existing base of non-Adivasi Hindu communities across caste groups in the unreserved seat, according to BJP workers hitting the campaign trail. Ms. Soren had quit the JMM and joined the BJP in March this year claiming to be “isolated” by the party and the Soren family. While she continues to go by the Soren surname on social media accounts, she has chosen to file nomination papers as Sita Murmu, as she has done in previous elections, with physical posters in the area also using this name. Incidentally, Murmus comprise the largest of the Adivasi communities in the area.

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But with campaign strategists for the JMM-Congress alliance in Jamtara insisting that the Adivasi voter in the Assembly constituency will not be swayed, Mr. Ansari is resorting to holding extensive meetings with communities such as the Mandal community — which comprises one of the largest communities among the non-Adivasi Hindu communities — who have historically migrated from neighbouring States over the last seven decades and are a significant proportion of the group often referred to as dikus or outsiders.

In this attempt, Mr. Ansari has been pushed into a corner on the issue of implementing the 1932 Khatiyan, which has been high on the list of promises by the INDIA bloc parties, featuring prominently in both the JMM’s and the Congress’s independent manifestos. His pitch instead to the community rests on BJP’s perceived insult to the Mandal community in denying a ticket to Birendra Mandal, who has been the BJP’s choice in 2019 and 2014 Assembly polls; and a promise to ensure government benefits reach their community, his campaign workers said.

About 15 kilometres west of Jamtara town centre is Dhobna village, which is dominated by the Mandal community. Fifty-year-old Gulab Mandal sits in his home as his wife drains the starch out of a fresh pot of rice. “I have tried to apply for every single government benefit. Got about ₹1.2 lakh under the PM-AWAS Yojana a couple of years ago but that was not nearly enough. I decided to sell some land and put up around ₹7 lakh more to finish the house.”

“Have you seen the number of Abua Awas homes (State government’s housing scheme) in Chengaidih?” Mr. Mandal asks about the neighbouring Muslim-dominated village, before continuing, “Eight hundred houses have been delivered there. Do you know how many there are in our village? Just five.”

In 2019, when the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance stormed to power in the State, Mr. Ansari had won the seat with a margin of over 38,000 votes against BJP’s Mandal — a margin of over 18%. But in 2014, Mr. Ansari’s victory had come on a margin of just about 9,000 votes – a difference of about 4.7%.

Meanwhile, inside the JMM party office in the heart of Jamtara, local party leaders gather for tea after a full day of campaigning for Mr. Ansari. “You know there is a saying in these parts. Kutte ke poonch pe teer-dhanush ka jhanda baandh doge to woh bhi jeet jayega (Even a dog running around with a JMM symbol will win Adivasi votes). All they are doing through the ‘infiltration’ rhetoric is polarising Muslim and Adivasi votes in our favour,” said Rabindranath Dubey. He adds, “We have Maiya Samman on our side.”

However, in Adivasi-dominant Nawadih village about 20 km further west of Dhobna, 47-year-old Sonalal Murmu sits outside his home of mud walls, which is on a kutcha road. Road construction in the area is in full swing but it stops just short of reaching the Adivasi neighbourhood. Mr. Murmu, a farmer, said: “Sita Soren’s daughter had visited our village seeking votes a couple of days ago. We have almost nothing here. There is only one well for the entire village, which will soon run dry. We rely on rains for the crop.”

On the outskirts of the village are small settlements of the Ghatwar community, which has been seeking inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list for decades now. BJP’s Godda MP had raised the issue in Lok Sabha as early as in a 2014 debate, referring to them as one of the indigenous communities of the Santhal Pargana region.

Thakur Raj, 35, said: “What we most urgently need are colonies,” pointing to his mud home, “Not one family in our village has received an Abua Awas home yet and our women keep waiting to get approved for the Maiya Samman scheme,” he said.

But even as both Mr. Ansari’s campaign and Ms. Soren’s campaign try to canvass votes to expand their respective bases, the recently popular Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Manch of Jairam Mahto, has decided to field Tarun Kumar Gupta of Jamtara town on this seat as well, who fought as an Independent in 2019, securing just about 2% of the vote share.

Pradeep Kumar, who runs a motor oil shop in town, and has been living and working in Jamtara for at least three generations now, said: “He is a good man. But our people in town have always made it a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress. Anyway, our business is not affected much but the issue this time is the increasing Muslim population. History has shown us what happens when they are in majority anywhere. And it is just a matter of time before the same starts happening in Jamtara.”

Published - November 16, 2024 10:02 pm IST