Ranchi: Corruption allegations and “washing machine” politics are dominating the political discourse in Jharkhand’s tribal Singhbhum constituency, where sitting MP Geeta Koda, the wife of former chief minister Madhu Koda, is once again contesting the Lok Sabha polls — this time as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate.
In February, Geeta, until then the state’s lone Congress MP, joined the BJP. In Singhbhum, which votes on 13 May, she faces Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and former state minister Joba Majhi, wife of ‘Jungle Bachao Andolan’ activist and former Manoharpur MLA Devendra Majhi.
In his election address at Chaibasa, a city in Singhbhum, on 23 April, Deepak Birua, a JMM minister in the Champai Soren government, illustrated just how intense the contest is likely to be. Birua claimed that Geeta joined the BJP to help “wash off” the corruption allegations against Madhu Koda, who was convicted in a coal scam case in 2017.
“The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) is a washing machine,” Birua said, amid loud cheers. “She changed sides so that her husband Madhu Koda, who is embroiled in a scam of Rs 4,000 crore, can be cleansed in the BJP’s washing machine.”
The speech seemingly also exemplifies the JMM’s strategy — after facing a setback following the arrest of its leader and former CM Hemant Soren on corruption charges, the party now appears to be trying to put the BJP on the defensive by targeting the Kodas.
According to political observer Rajat Kumar Gupta, the JMM is trying to “kill two birds with one stone”. The tribal society sees Hemant Soren’s arrest as a ploy of the BJP, he said.
“The JMM is trying to mobilise not only its cadre, but also tribals in the constituency. At the same time, it’s trying to indicate that the Koda couple is attempting to wriggle out of their troubles by joining the BJP,” he said, adding that these allegations will have some impact on the election.
The BJP, however, has taken exception to being described as a “washing machine”. Addressing reporters after an election meeting in Singhbhum’s Seraikela, BJP state in-charge Laxmikant Bajpai said only the people who “maintain good conduct and behaviour” after joining the party remain part of it.
“But if the law takes its course and action is taken against anyone, the BJP will not become an obstacle,” he said.
On her part, Geeta Koda said that the cases were still ongoing and that she had “faith in the legal processes”. The JMM-Congress coalition, she claimed, hasn’t done anything for tribals in the state in the last 4.5 years.
“They (the JMM) have nothing to say to the public during the elections. That is why they are adopting these tactics,” she told ThePrint.
The JMM, meanwhile, defends its usage of the term. In his comments to ThePrint, JMM MLA Niral Purty claimed Hemant Soren’s arrest was “part of a political conspiracy”. “Tribals understand this. They also understand why the Kodas joined the BJP. The ‘washing machine’ politics of the BJP is known throughout the country,” he said.
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‘BJP wants to win at all cost’
While addressing the Chaibasa meeting, Birua asked the crowd who they would vote for — “those who come out of the BJP’s washing machine, or for the wife of a tribal martyr who died protecting jal, jungle, zameen (water, forests, and land)?”.
The reserved constituency covers the entire West Singhbhum district and part of Seraikela Kharsawan district. According to the 2011 Census, 67.3 percent of West Singhbhum and 35.18 percent of Seraikela Kharsawan are Scheduled Tribes.
There are six assembly segments — Seraikela, Chaibasa, Majhgaon, Jaganathpur, Manoharpur, and Chakradharpur — under this parliamentary seat. Of these, five — including Champai Soren’s Seraikela and four-time MLA Joba Majhi’s Manoharpur — are with the JMM, while Jaganathpur is currently with the Congress.
Jaganathpur is considered the bastion of the Kodas, having been represented twice each by Madhu (2000 and 2005) and Geeta (2009 and 2014). In 2019, Congress leader and sitting MLA Sona Ram Sinku won the seat by over 12,000 votes.
Addressing an election meeting in Khunti this week, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh accused the ruling JMM-Congress coalition of corruption, adding that the state’s three BJP chief ministers — Babulal Marandi, Arjun Munda and Raghubar Das — were clean.
However, his speech made no mention of Madhu Koda, who was the chief minister from 2006 to 2008.
According to JMM general secretary and party spokesperson Vinod Kumar Pandey, the minister should have explained why the BJP, once critical of the leader, has now “embraced” him.
“The BJP, which called Madhu Koda a symbol of corruption, is going around hugging the Koda couple,” JMM’s Chakradharpur MLA Sukhram Oraon told ThePrint. “At public every meeting, the JMM telling voters how the BJP’s washing machine politics works.”
Former BJP leaders, too, make this criticism against the party. Saryu Roy, a former BJP leader who beat then BJP CM and five-time MLA Raghubar Das to win Jamshedpur East in the 2019 assembly polls, claims that the party wants to win the election “at all cost”.
“They’re leaving no stone unturned for this,” Roy, whose 2012 book ‘Madhu Koda Loot Raj’ is about the corruption allegations against the former chief minister, told ThePrint. “They (the BJP) have done this in other states too.”
The rise and fall of Madhu Koda
Madhu Koda began his career in 2000 as part of the All Jharkhand Students Union, winning from Jaganathpur on a BJP ticket in the 2000 Bihar assembly election. After Jharkhand was carved out of the then undivided Bihar, Koda became part of the new state assembly and briefly even served as a minister in the Babulal Marandi government.
In 2005, miffed at the BJP for denying him a ticket, he contested and won the assembly polls as an independent but eventually extended support to the Arjun Munda-led BJP government.
In 2006, Madhu was one of three independent legislators to withdraw support from the Arjun Munda government leading to its fall. Days later, he staked claim to form a government with the support of the JMM, the Congress, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
That government too didn’t last long — in 2008, the JMM withdrew support citing corruption, forcing Madhu Koda to resign.
On 30 November 2009, the then Singhbhum MP was arrested in alleged disproportionate assets and money laundering case. Koda and his associates were accused of amassing around Rs 4,000 crore by illegally brokering mining deals.
He remained in jail for over 44 months until he was granted bail in August 2013.
Since then, the former CM has been facing several corruption and money laundering cases, with the Jharkhand High Court staying trial in one such case on 8 November 2023. He’s currently out on bail.
On 16 December 2017, a special CBI court in Delhi sentenced him to three years of jail in one of eight coal scam cases in which he stands accused. After he petitioned challenging the sentence, the Delhi High Court stayed it as well as the fine of Rs 25 lakh imposed on him.
However, the same year, the Election Commission held him guilty of underreporting election expenses and disqualified him from contesting polls for the next three years.
In 2019 — months before the Jharkhand assembly polls — Madhu Koda appealed the sentence in the Supreme Court. Although the apex court refused to allow him to contest the elections, it issued a notice to the election body.
After his arrest in 2009, Geeta Koda took control of his Jai Bharat Samanta Party, which he had founded that same year. Of the nine candidates the party fielded for the 2009 assembly elections, only one — Geeta, who debuted from Jaganathpur — won.
In 2019, the party merged with the Congress. That year, Geeta contested the Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate — the only party leader to have won that year. She beat her nearest rival, BJP’s Laxman Giluwa, by 72,155 votes.
Since the schedule for this election was announced last month, Madhu Koda has been handling Geeta’s election campaign, even going on campaigning rounds with her.
Like the BJP, Geeta, too, dismisses the JMM’s allegations. “If people have kept their faith in us, it’s because we live among the people and work for them,” she said. “We will defeat the JMM and win this election.”
But her JMM rival Joba Majhi calls the couple as “opportunists”. She also claimed it was her party’s “force and influence” that helped her rival win the election as a Congress candidate.
“The people of Singhbhum elected her to Parliament by a large margin in 2019, but Geeta Koda betrayed their trust,” she said, adding that the BJP is “hemmed in” this time around and that it is “going to get a big shock”.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)