At 2 am November 23, six hours to go for counting to begin in the Jharkhand Assembly elections, a core member of Hemant Soren’s strategy team woke up in panic. The 38-year-old, who does not want to be identified, started thinking about how the BJP had won the recent Haryana Assembly elections despite the expectations of a Congress win, and about the Jharkhand BJP’s assertions that it would win 50-plus seats in the state.

Pointing to the paunch he grew and the hair he lost while steering the JMM campaign during the closely fought Jharkhand elections, the 38-year-old political strategist says: “I started thinking, what if the BJP was one step ahead of us and we had not got a whiff of their ground-level connect… I nearly had a nervous breakdown.”

That panic proved short-lived, as Soren was voted back to power, in a first for an incumbent government in Jharkhand, with a bracing majority.

Relaxing for the first time in months, the strategist and his team of around a dozen talk about how they went about tackling a shrill BJP narrative built on “love and land jihad” and on protecting “Roti, beti, maati (food, daughter, land)”.

The 38-year-old, who says he picked up the tricks of “silent campaigning” while volunteering with the Labour Party in the UK, describes their efforts as like that of a mouse – “burrowing deep into the minds of the 15 lakh households in Jharkhand with Hemant Soren’s guarantees”. These included promises of power waiver, of increase in the direct benefit transfer to women under the Maiyya Samman Yojna to Rs 2,500, and of transfer of Rs 1,000 to all above the age of 50.

More strikingly, the team decided “not to spend a single rupee on digital advertising”, planning instead five to six nukkad sabhas (corner meetings) every day for star campaigners Soren and wife Kalpana, where their speeches focused on JMM government schemes and their shared “tribal identity”.

The speeches were meant to counter the BJP’s consistent narrative of “infiltration” and “Ek hain toh safe hain”, painting the same as a Hindutva view that saw tribals as part of the larger Hindu umbrella.

At sabhas addressed by JMM leaders, another constant message was that “the BJP is here to take away the resources of the state”. Soren said in speeches: “Inki nazar hamaare rajya ki khanij sampada par hai, ye cheel aur giddh ki tarah mandra rahe hain (The BJP’s eye is on our mineral wealth, it is hovering over it like eagles and vultures).”

Alongside, surveys were held of constituencies to get a clear idea of the issues on the ground, and to train workers in booth management.

Says the 38-year-old: “Our volunteers visited at least 30,000 households per constituency and distributed ‘guarantee cards’ (listing the Soren government’s schemes). In the constituencies where we were weak, like Giridih or Tamar, we covered around 45,000 households per seat. This put us a step ahead of the BJP.”

Including in realising that “infiltration” was not an issue. The JMM strategy team head says that in their meetings across constituencies, this never came up. “I often wondered why the BJP was sticking to this plank… as their surveys would have told them what they were telling us. This remained a question mark (for me), and that is one reason I panicked in the early hours of November 23.”

The other advice by the strategy team to the JMM was to reiterate among tribals that it was “their party”. “We had a Santhali slogan for ST-reserved seats – ‘Aksar deo okoeak, abuwa abuwa (Whose is the bow and arrow, it’s mine, it’s mine)’. (Bow and arrow is the symbol of the JMM.).”

Across the constituencies that The Indian Express visited, JMM voters knew the bow and arrow, even if they were hazy on the candidates.

The strategy team comprises all Jharkhand-based, foreign educated professionals trained in policy, management, research methods or communications. The 38-year-old, the head, says they first met Soren in 2017, when they made a presentation to the then Opposition leader explaining how they could help him beat the BJP. The last slide asked: “What is your vision for Jharkhand?”

One of the team members says: “We wanted to know if Hemant had any ideas for the state’s development.” According to the strategist, who is in his 40s, the JMM leader’s ideology matched their own – “economically centre-left and socially liberal” – and that they saw him as a leader who could counter “the growing saffronisation fascism”.

A crucial member of the team says they were very clear about this, mentioning a visit to the Holocast memorial in Germany as a defining moment in his life. “Modern-day electioneering is information warfare, and we have to be bloody good at it.”

But when the team took over, it was in for a surprise. The JMM had zero social media presence, with many people in remote areas of the state even unaware of how Hemant Soren looked. In January-February 2018, the team created the JMM’s first X, formerly Twitter, account, followed by district-level accounts.

The team talks about how the BJP was a daunting opponent at the time, with Chief Minister Raghubar Das seen as a “bold” leader who publicly upbraided bureaucrats. So, they decided to go the other way. “We projected a softer side of Hemant Soren, with photos of him with his family etc.”

As part of the image makeover, during his ‘Sangharsha Yatra’, Soren literally had his sleeves rolled up and adopted a new style of addressing the crowd, drawing them in, says the member. The strategists also worked on Soren’s speeches, which tended to teem with ideas without a coherent theme sometimes.

The 38-year-old says that, to his credit, Soren was always open to ideas.

Having won Soren’s trust and admiration, the team faced its second challenge early this year when it became clear that the Jharkhand CM would be arrested. The 38-year-old says they advised Soren to record a video message for the people, with Kalpana doing the recording.

When Soren was finally arrested in the alleged money laundering case, the video message assuaged many nervous JMM leaders. Soren ensured the government carried on smoothly by anointing Champai Soren as CM before the arrest. For the party, a personal aide of Soren suggested Kalpana’s name.

It again fell to the strategy team to prepare Kalpana, who had till then stayed in the background, and they worked on her public speaking skills and appearances.

In her first speech, Kalpana broke down as she spoke of Soren’s arrest, and added an emotional appeal: “Main aapke saamne 50 pratishat mahila aur 9 pratishat Adivasi ki awaaz banke khadi hoon (I am standing before you as a woman and as an Adivasi, who are 50% and 9% of the country).”

Kalpana’s success went beyond the JMM’s expectations. A member of the strategy team says the 37-year-old is the opposite of Soren, 49. “She is methodical, gets deep into her speeches, and prepares well for them,” he says, unlike Soren’s more spontaneous approach.

JMM leader Kunal Sarangi acknowledges the crucial role played by Kalpana and the contribution of Soren’s strategy team in it. “Kalpana ji is now a mass leader, across groups. The team advised her on her body language, mannerisms… And then the decision to make her the face of the Maiyya Samman Yojana – all worked in our favour,” Sarangi told The Indian Express.

JMM general secretary Vinod Pandey says the party’s win is a result of “teamwork”. “It is not a single person’s work. All of our skills and our leaders’ vision helped us gain more seats.”

It is late Sunday evening, a day-and-a-half after the results and exhaustion is finally catching up. A core member of the strategy team says they will now begun analysing losses in seats they expected to win. About the future, the team isn’t decided yet… “we have a few offers from different parts of the country”.

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