BJP’s infiltration story lost midway: Jharkhand shows no fear of ‘infiltrators’

RANCHI: Hoping to wrest Jharkhand from the Hemant Soren-led JMM govt, the BJP went to the polls with a strong strategy of showcasing cases of poor tribals losing their land to Bangladeshi land grabbers, in a move that eventually backfired with the entire campaign getting lost in translation on ground.

And the result was JMM in its bastion of Santhal Pargana clinched all 18, but one seat with the help of its partners BJP got reduced from four seats in 2019 to one this time while the JMM bagged 11, Congress four and RJD two. Devendra Kunwar is the only BJP man in Santhal's Jarmundi seat.

The idea was to examine how much of tribal land had changed hands from tribals over the past few decades and star BJP campaigner Himanta Biswa Sarma highlighting how JMM was becoming a stumbling block.

Turns out, many tribals in the region, reeling under abject poverty were signing daan patras (tribal land is legally non-transferable) to hand over their non-saleable land to local Muslims to run a business and getting paid in return. Almost the entire Santhal Pargana region is governed by Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act of 1876 under which not even an inch of tribal land is transferable. This renders the tribals poor, especially when they are unable to practice farming. Under tacit local understanding they write off their land for a small price to local Muslim families and also get some money annually when it's the time to pay land revenue.

As polls neared and campaigning got hectic, the narrative somewhere got lost in translation and turned out to be "ghuspethiyas" (infiltrators) crossing the Bangladesh border through West Bengal's Murshidabad and grabbing land, livelihoods and even Adivasi women. What followed next was a poll cry of –roti, beti and maati (vote to save employment options, daughters and land being grabbed by infiltrators)

The ruling JMM-Congress combine countered saying BJP was spoiling communal harmony, creating a divide between locals and creating unnecessary fear when the reality was something else. "Himanta Biswa Sarma is quite an artist. There is always communal talk. We don't share a border with Bangladesh and the border in West Bengal is guarded by central forces," thundered CM Hemant Soren.

The Muslims of Jharkhand, who are residents for decades and the tribals wondered each time a BJP leader came asking for a "ghuspetia". "This is laughable, they are trying to find out about ghuspetias. Are we infiltrators? The tribals and Muslim local residents are a happy lot. We even had the odd love marriages," said Asharful Sheikh who married Jharna Marandi, now pradhan of Nartanpur village

As the date of election approached, the local BJP leaders dropped the "ghuspetias" angle in their campaign and soon, AJSU party, an ally of the NDA dropped infiltration from their manifesto. "Yaha ghuspetias wala baat nahi chalega," said Alamgir Alam, district president of Ajsu party in Pakur, who was overlooking the campaign for his party candidate Azhar Islam. He along with the BJP poll incharge denied infiltration being any issue.

"Let the leaders talk about it for the national audience, we know the ground reality here," Alam added.

The result was clear as the JMM led INDIA bloc routed the BJP from the 27 (JMM-21, Congress-6) of 28 ST seats. Former CM Champai Soren emerged as the only legislator of the saffron camp to be elected from ST reserved seat (Seraikela).

The INDIA bloc's strong performance across the seats indicated that the BJP's politics did not resonate among the tribal electorate. Nalin Soren, the incumbent Dumka MP who represented Shikaripara (ST) assembly segment until this year's Lok Sabha election, claimed that the tribal electorate rejected the BJP's politics of communalism and hatred in this election.

"Several factors resulted in a good show. While there was the benefit of the social welfare schemes such as Maiyya Samman and Savitri Bai Phule Yojana, there was considerable discontent among the electorate because the BJP led government at the Centre did not act on the Sarna Code. Today's results proved that the tribal community has rallied strongly behind Hemant Soren," he told TOI in Dumka.