New Delhi: Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren won by a huge margin of 95,612 votes, beating BJP candidate Gamliyel Hembrom in Barhait constituency Saturday.
The remaining candidates in the fray from this seat were left far behind in the competition.
This was the second time Soren and Hembrom were pitted against each other. In 2019, Hembrom had lost his security deposit when he had squared off with JMM leader Soren on an AJSU (All Jharkhand Students Union) ticket. Hembrom, a football enthusiast, had that year just got 2,500 votes in Barhait.
Defeating Soren in Barhait was expected to be challenging for the BJP as the JMM has held the seat since 1990 while Soren himself has won it twice, in 2014 and 2019.
Hemlal Murmu had won the seat for the JMM in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2009, but he later joined the BJP. When the party fielded him against Soren in 2014, Murmu got only 38,428 votes against Soren’s 62,515.
In the previous Jharkhand election, Soren had contested from two assembly constituencies, like he did in 2014. One was the JMM’s traditional stronghold of Barhait and the other was Dumka. Soren won Barhait by over 25,000 votes against BJP candidate Simon Malto. A tribal leader, Malto joined the JMM last month. In Dumka, Soren won against Louis Marandi by over 13,000 votes in 2019.
In 2014, Soren had lost Dumka when Louis Marandi defeated him by 5,000 votes.
Soren had entered politics in 2005 when the first assembly election took place in Jharkhand after the state’s formation in 2000. That year, JMM chief Shibu Soren had fielded Hemant Soren from Dumka but party leader Stephen Marandi, who had been winning the seat for two decades, revolted against the decision and decided to contest as an Independent.
The young Soren lost to Stephen Marandi and got third position. Soren tried his luck again from Dumka in 2009, after he had been made working president of the JMM, and defeated Stephen Marandi who was contesting on a Congress ticket.
This year, the BJP had planned to field Louis Marandi from Barhait but she did not agree to fight against Soren and wanted to contest from Dumka instead. She quit the BJP in October this year and joined the JMM to contest from Jama seat.
In Jharkhand, there is a long history of sitting and former chief ministers losing their seat. In 2009, after Shibu Soren replaced Madhu Koda as CM, he contested the bypoll from Tamar seat and lost to Gopal Krishna Patar. He later had to resign from the post of CM.
In the 2014 assembly election, former CM Arjun Munda lost against Dashrath Gagrai in Kharsawan seat despite his party winning the state. Former CM Babulal Marandi too lost polls from both Dhanwar and Giridih seats that year, while Madhu Koda lost Majhgaon to JMM’s Niral Purty.
In the 2019 election, then sitting CM Raghubar Das lost Jamshedpur East to independent candidate Saryu Rai.
In Barhait, tribals constitute more than 50 percent of population and Muslims make up 15 percent.
A local BJP leader had earlier told ThePrint: “In the last election, we had fielded a candidate hoping to get votes from the pahadiya (Santhal tribals who live in the mountains) as they support the BJP, but we did not win. This time, we are expecting more votes than we got in 2019 but can’t say about victory.”
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)