Jharkhand’s loud message to BJP: Symbolic overtures won’t win tribal votes

Jharkhand’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) constituencies delivered a stunning verdict in the recent elections, handing the INDIA coalition an almost complete victory and marking one of the most decisive rejections of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in recent history.
Of the 28 reserved seats, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Congress claimed 27, leaving the BJP with only the Saraikela seat—a win attributed more to local factors than to any widespread endorsement of the party.
The scale of this setback for the BJP becomes even clearer in the vote-share. In the 21 ST seats contested by the JMM, the party garnered an impressive 51.62 per cent of the vote, eclipsing the NDA’s 34.57 per cent by a decisive 17 per cent margin, equivalent to a gap of 639,800 votes.
The Congress added to this blow, sweeping all seven ST seats it contested with 47.32 per cent of the vote—a lead of 11.32 per cent over the NDA.
Numbers speak
The JMM’s dominance in the 21 ST-reserved seats was unmistakable, having secured 1,936,846 out of the 3,751,556 valid votes cast. The NDA, contesting with the BJP in 19 seats and allies All Jharkhand Students Union Party (AJSU Party) and Janata Dal (United) in one seat each, managed only 1,297,046 votes. The BJP’s lone win, by Champai Soren in Saraikela, stood out as an anomaly in an otherwise devastating performance.
In the remaining seven ST-reserved seats, the Congress mirrored this success, claiming 656,271 votes out of 1,386,723 cast, while the NDA mustered 499,237. These figures underline a broader narrative: a tribal electorate disillusioned with the BJP and rallying firmly behind the INDIA coalition.
The BJP’s tribal disconnect
The BJP’s alienation from Jharkhand’s tribal voters is no sudden phenomenon. Years of policy decisions perceived as anti-tribal have compounded the party’s woes. The most infamous of these was former chief minister Raghubar Das’s attempt to amend tenancy laws, which protect tribal land ownership, during his 2014-2019 tenure. Though the proposal was eventually abandoned, the damage was lasting, leaving many tribal voters feeling betrayed.
This sentiment has been reflected in the BJP’s declining fortunes in ST constituencies. Once a stronghold, the party won nine ST seats in the 2005 assembly polls, nine again in 2009, and 11 in 2014. By 2019, that number had dropped to just two seats. The BJP’s losses extended to the national level in the general elections this year, where it forfeited all three ST-reserved Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand that were secured in 2019.
Efforts to regain tribal support—including appointing tribal leader Babulal Marandi as state unit chief and leveraging Champai Soren’s defection—failed to reverse this decline. Champai’s victory in Saraikela was an outlier, highlighting the party’s broader structural issues.
Sympathy, identity and Soren
Aware of the tribal electorate’s significance—26.3 per cent of Jharkhand’s population—the BJP deployed a slew of tribal leaders, including former chief ministers Arjun Munda, Madhu Koda and Champai Soren, alongside Marandi.
However, Hemant Soren, buoyed by widespread sympathy following his arrest by central agencies in January, successfully cast himself as the guardian of tribal rights and identity. Framing the BJP as an existential threat to tribal pride, Soren’s campaign struck a chord with voters.
The BJP’s defeat in ST-reserved seats was comprehensive. Even high-profile candidates like Meera Munda and Geeta Koda—wives of Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda—lost their contests. Champai Soren’s son Babulal Soren failed to secure a win.
Internal dissent within the BJP has since surfaced. Marandi’s decision to contest a non-tribal seat, for example, was seen as a misstep that weakened his credibility as a tribal leader.
Misjudged strategy, unified resistance
The BJP’s divisive rhetoric, particularly its promise of ‘reclaiming’ land from ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’, backfired. Aimed at dividing the tribal-Muslim alliance—a coalition comprising 41 per cent of Jharkhand’s electorate—it instead solidified the unity of the marginalised communities. Voters perceived the BJP’s stance as a direct threat to tribal solidarity, further aligning them with the INDIA coalition.
Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate’s investigation against Hemant Soren, widely seen as politically motivated, added to the BJP’s woes, galvanising tribal voters, who viewed it as an attack on their leader and identity.
The homework ahead
The Jharkhand assembly election result underscores a seismic shift in political loyalties. For the INDIA bloc, consolidating these gains will require sustained engagement with tribal grievances. For the BJP, the results are a clear call to rebuild trust with the state’s indigenous communities—a task demanding more than symbolic overtures.
Jharkhand’s tribal electorate has once again asserted its centrality to the state’s politics. Any party aspiring to govern Jharkhand must recognise that tribal concerns are not peripheral but fundamental to its political landscape.
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