THE HUGE gap between the NDA and INDIA bloc numbers in Jharkhand (56:22 seats) hides another number – that in terms of vote share, at 33.2%, the BJP that fought 68 seats was only marginally behind the JMM and Congress’s combined share of 39.02%, after putting up candidates in 75 seats. This meant that the BJP vote share remained almost the same as in 2019 (33.37%), while the JMM and Congress got more than five years ago (32.6%).

So how did the BJP end up with just 21 seats compared to the JMM’s 34? Plus, why does the BJP’s tally include just one tribal seat?

Here’s a look at five reasons why:

1.  BJP banking on “infiltration”, ignoring ground-level issues

Since assuming charge of Jharkhand elections as the BJP co-in-charge, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma went about building a narrative of alleged Bangladeshi infiltration in the Santhal Parganas area of the state. Other BJP leaders amplified the narrative, giving it the jargon of “love and land jihad”, by claiming that these “infiltrators” were marrying tribal women to take their assets, and further projecting a threat to “tribal identity”. The message boiled down in the latter half of the BJP campaign to “Protecting roti, maati, beti (food, land and daughters)” of the tribals.

Rather than checking this, BJP leaders claimed, the ruling INDIA bloc of the JMM, Congress and RJD turned a blind eye as part of its “appeasement” politics.

The results showed that the BJP did not even open its account in Santhal Parganas, though its narrative appears to have worked to some extent in the North Chotanagpur region – a majority of which is urban – with the BJP and its allies winning 14 of the 25 seats here.

What the overall failure of the narrative also underlined was the BJP’s inability to focus on jobs and corruption, which were things being talked about on the ground. An observer said: “The BJP had various issues it could have raised: lack of jobs, corruption allegations against Hemant Soren, money recovered from then minister Alamgir Alam, death of excise constable job aspirants during recruitment exams. Instead, it focused on infiltration, and all other issues were subsumed under it. There was no need for fear mongering around land grab, marriage of Adivasi women.”

2. The Jairam Mahato factor

The scissors symbol of the rising Kudmi leader’s Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM) party cut votes across constituencies, largely benefiting the JMM.

At least in 11 seats – Silli, Bokaro, Gomia, Giridih, Tundi, Ichagarh, Tamar, Chakradharpur, Chandankyari, Kanke and Kharsawan – the votes polled by the JLKM, which was floated only a few months ago, were more than the winning margin. Only in one seat, Dumri, from where Jairam Mahato won, the JLKM affected the JMM.

The party most hurt by the JLKM’s rise, expectedly, was BJP ally All Jharkhand Students’ Union Party, which ended up with just one seat (while it won just two in 2019, that time it had contested alone). AJSUP head Sudesh Mahato himself lost from Silli. In Jairam Mahato, who is just 29, many see an OBC leader of promise, who fills a gap that the AJSUP once promised to do.

In a post on X, Sudesh Mahato wrote: “We respect the mandate… and congratulate Hemant Soren ji. We will review this election result within our party and NDA.”

3. Maiyya Samman Yojana and Kalpana Soren

Women voters turned out in larger numbers than the men for voting in Jharkhand this time. As per Election Commission data, while 91.16 lakh women cast their votes, the number for men stood nearly 6 lakh behind, at 85.64 lakh. In terms of voting percentage, 70.46% of the women voters cast their ballot, while 65% of the men did.

In the Lok Sabha elections held five months ago, where the NDA did well, the gap between women and men voters was much lesser – 87.11 lakh and 83.85 lakh, respectively. Even the gap between how many women and men voters turned out was much lower too, 68.67% for women, and 63.79% for men. The surge in the gap in the Assembly polls was largely because many more women came out to vote this time than in the Lok Sabha elections – in absolute numbers, 7.3 lakh more women voted compared to 1.8 lakh more men.

While the revision of the electoral rolls adding more voters explained the increase partially, a bigger one seems to have been the Hemant Soren government’s success in wooing women with its Maiyya Samman Yojana, which provides Rs 1,000 per month to women aged 21-49. The JMM said the scheme was conceptualised by CM Hemant while in jail over money laundering allegations, and then in the run-up to the elections, the party made Kalpana Murmu Soren the face of the Yojana, with Hemant’s wife holding meetings across the state to spread its message.

The tactic paid off.

4. BJP failure in 28 ST-reserved seats

In 2019, the BJP had won only two ST-reserved seats. With the party not picking up a single tribal seat in the Lok Sabha polls as well, it realised that it needed to win over these for any chance of a victory in Jharkhand. That’s why the narrative of infiltration. The BJP’s drop to only one ST-reserved seat this time indicates that it failed.

It also indicates that the tribals continue to view the BJP suspiciously, for reasons as varied as its messaging of “Ek hain toh safe hain” which was seen as propagating Adivasis as part of one big Hindu fold; the bid by the Raghubar Das-led BJP government of 2014 and 2019 to try change tenancy laws; the appointment of the non-tribal Das as CM in a state formed with the stated aim of providing a home to tribals; and, more recently, the jailing of Hemant Soren, the son of Jharkhand’s foremost tribal leader Shibu Soren.

The rancour ensured that many BJP tribal power figures lost, including former CM Madhu Koda’s wife Geeta Koda and former CM and Union minister Arjun Munda’s wife Meera Munda.

The BJP’s tactic of weaning away Hemant’s No. 2 and short-lived CM Champai Soren also did not help the party, including in Champai’s Kolhan turf. His son Babulal lost.

Incidentally, BJP tribal leader Babulal Marandi skipped the meeting held in Ranchi Saturday evening by observers sent from Delhi by the high command to assess the party’s loss.

5. Poor management

Despite its success in getting Champai to its side, the BJP failed to build on it, with the senior leader left unsure of his exact role in the new party. In the midst of the many CM hopefuls in the BJP, a reported promise that Champai would be given the post if the BJP won seemed increasingly hollow.

A senior Delhi-based BJP leader said that a meeting held at the party headquarters in the Capital on the Jharkhand results identified “ineffective election management” and “erroneous distribution” of tickets to incumbent MLAs in spite of their unpopularity as two prime reasons for the party’s poor performance. The ticket distribution is believed to have been faulty in at least seven Assembly seats.

“We are in the process of assessing the results to see precisely what seats the BJP lost due to low vote margins,” a leader who did not wish to be named said.

“There are many seats which the party appears to have lost due to its decision to field locally unpopular candidates or those who were facing anti-incumbency,” the leader added.

Sources said the failure to tackle rebels is also one of the things the BJP is looking at, though some did withdraw after the party leadership reached out to them.