Ranchi/Dhanbad/Dumka: Campaigning in the bustling industrial city of Jamshedpur last week, one of the BJP’s star campaigners, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, called upon the residents to visit Ayodhya and lend a helping hand in building the Ram temple.
The firebrand UP CM is not the only one from the BJP trying to whip up passion among Hindus, who constitute 67.83 per cent of the population of Jharkhand. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh are all using the Ram temple in Ayodhya, nationalism, and the scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir as the main poll planks in the assembly election campaign.
But political analysts say that not only voters, even BJP candidates know that raking up these issues will not help.
“To some extent, urban voters may get influenced by Ram mandir and scrapping Article 370 from Kashmir, but rural voters are bothered only about issues concerning them,” says professor B.K. Sinha, head of the department of political science at Ranchi’s St Xavier’s College.
State leaders run different campaign
BJP candidates and state leaders, however, mostly skip any reference to these topics during their campaign.
Party insiders say that in assembly elections, such issues do not resonate with voters.
“It’s OK in the Lok Sabha elections, but in assembly elections, you have to connect with voters on local issues. Otherwise, they will not reciprocate,” says a BJP state unit leader who does not want to be named.
BJP’s Dumka candidate Louis Marandi, who defeated Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Hemant Soren in 2014, says she is seeking votes in the name of development and nothing else.
“Before 2014, people have never seen development here. There was no facility for schools, colleges or hospitals. In the last five years, we have brought a medical college, where classes have also started. We have opened many schools. After seeing these developments, people here have become more aspirational,” Marandi tells ThePrint.
Ragini Singh, the BJP candidate from Jharia in Dhanbad district, too is talking about development. “I am seeking votes for bringing development to the region and improving the living conditions of those working in the coal mines here. People have seen the benefits of a stable leadership in the last five years and want more.”
Even in general constituencies such as Ranchi and Dhanbad, which have a predominantly Hindu population, Ayodhya and Article 370 have failed to find a resonance.
“Modiji and Amit Shahji are talking about how the BJP ensured a peaceful settlement of the Ram temple dispute in Ayodhya. But tell me, how does it make my life better in Dhanbad? I am more concerned about the high level of pollution from the adjoining coal mines affecting my children’s health,” says Munna Lal Barnwal, a shopkeeper in Dhanbad.
It’s only in a handful of urban and semi-urban pockets that people talk about the Ram temple being built under the BJP’s rule.
“People in Jharkhand are more bothered about bread and butter issues like jobs, better roads and infrastructure development. Hindutva and nationalism are mere rhetoric to digress from the main issues,” says Vidyawati Singh, who owns a grocery shop in Hatia assembly constituency, a semi-urban pocket adjoining Ranchi.
Also read: 3 challenges for Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das — ‘arrogance’, opposition within BJP, and tribals
‘BJP’s desperation’
Opposition parties in Jharkhand have slammed the BJP for raking up issues like Article 370 and Hindutva in the assembly elections.
“BJP knows that it does not have any substantive issue on which it can seek votes. That is why its leaders are talking about Ayodhya and NRC. Nothing is going to come out of it as people have rejected these issues,” Babulal Marandi, Jharkhand’s first BJP CM, who went on to form his own party, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), tells ThePrint.
Subodh Kant Sahay, the Congress party’s campaign committee head in Jharkhand, says raking up these issues is an indication of the BJP’s desperation.
“They don’t have anything to show for the five years that they were in power. Also, it was the Supreme Court that gave the verdict on the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Why is the BJP taking credit for what the court did?” Sahay asked.
Also read: BJP only talks about Hindutva, say voters across Jharkhand towns amid job loss & slowdown
The BJP has just one USP – Hindutva. It has nothing else to showcase for its last 5 years of pseudo governance.
It is a measure of how ignorant – some would say stupid – I am about electoral politics that CM Ajay Bisht one would have thought is the last personage the ruling party would have used in other parts of the country as a symbol of its vision of governance and economic development.