New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will corner the Hemant Soren-led government in Jharkhand on “corruption and law and order” and for “crushing the aspirations of tribals” in the state, former chief minister and party leader Babulal Marandi has said.
Belonging to the state’s largest tribe, the Santhals, Marandi is the most prominent tribal face of the BJP in Jharkhand.
He was earlier this month selected as the state BJP chief as the party prepares to give a fight to Soren — another Santhal leader and a leader of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) — ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the state elections due later next year.
In an interaction with ThePrint, Marandi spoke about the BJP’s strategies to win over tribals in Jharkhand, the “primary challenge” of the Lok Sabha polls, the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), and the “biggest issues of corruption and law and order”.
“The Chief Minister’s Office has become the office of a middleman. Soren is making a record of corruption every day and the aspirations of tribals have been crushed by his government. These are the issues on which the BJP will fight the Lok Sabha and assembly elections next year,” he said.
Marandi also spoke about the proposed Uniform Civil Code (UCC), saying the BJP-led central government was open to suggestions from the tribal community and was listening to the voices of the people through the Law Commission, which invited public views on the subject last month.
“A law will be made for the welfare of tribals and that is why elaborate consultation is happening in the Law Commission,” he told ThePrint.
Marandi had become the first CM of Jharkhand in 2000 when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won power in the state soon after its formation, and held the post until 2003. However, he quit the BJP in 2006 to form his own party, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik). In 2020, he merged the party with the BJP and was welcomed back by Union home minister Amit Shah.
However, the BJP appears to have been losing support among Jharkhand’s tribals since 2014 after it gave the CM’s chair in the state polls that year to Raghubar Das, an OBC leader.
In the 2019 assembly polls, the party could win only two of the 28 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the state (out of a total of 81 assembly seats), down from the 14 it had won in 2014. Most of the reserved tribal seats are in the Santhal Pargana region, to which both Marandi and Soren belong.
When asked whether the BJP was propping him up because it was losing its base in the tribal belt of the state, Marandi, a two-term MLA who currently represents his home constituency of Dhanwar, asserted that the “BJP is strong in Jharkhand”.
“The BJP has been in power in the state previously, and had formed the first government. It won a good number of Lok Sabha seats (eight of 14) in the 2009 general elections and right now has 11 of these seats. We may have lost some elections due to some factors but that does not mean the party is weak,” he said.
“I was appointed state unit chief because the president is changed every three years. Our priority is to bring back the BJP government and retain our Lok Sabha seats in 2024,” he added.
Taking a swipe at CM Soren, Marandi said: “I don’t have any anger towards Soren, rather I am grateful that he helped me in getting the post of party president by not granting me the status of leader of opposition for three years.”
The Jharkhand assembly Speaker is yet to give leader of opposition status to Marandi — who was elected as BJP legislature party leader — as a disqualification plea is pending against him after he merged his party with the BJP.
“The party high command thought that Marandi has been fighting in the state for three years without any post and it’s better to make him the state unit chief to fight Soren,” he added.
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‘Soren a symbol of corruption’
According to Marandi, the BJP’s immediate challenge is to retain the 11 Lok Sabha seats it currently holds in Jharkhand, and for that the party aims to promote the work of the Narendra Modi-led central government and highlight alleged corruption in the state government.
“Our challenge right now is the Lok Sabha elections. We were defeated in the previous assembly elections due to several factors. However, the JMM and Soren did not fulfil their promises to the people. The Soren government has become a symbol of dynasty politics and corruption, which is at the highest level right now,” he said. “The tribals are feeling cheated and are returning to the BJP.”
The BJP has, however, lost four byelections (Bermo, Dumka, Madhupur and Mandar) held in the state since 2019, including two in reserved ST seats (Mandar and Dumka).
Talking about the BJP’s poll campaign in the state, Marandi told ThePrint: “We will go to the people with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good work done over nine years at the Centre, be it the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or Kisan Samman Nidhi or free rations. Several such central schemes have had huge impact in the state.”
“While the people gave the mandate to the JMM in 2019 thinking that Soren would work for the welfare of tribals, he did not honour that trust. He cheated them. So, we have to tell the people that the BJP government is working tirelessly for their welfare,” he said.
Marandi also spoke about the “office of profit” case against Soren, in which the BJP has accused the CM of having awarded a mining lease to himself in 2021 while holding charge of the state mining and environment department.
The Election Commission (EC) last year issued notice to Soren seeking an explanation as to why he should not be disqualified as an MLA over the charges. The matter currently rests with the state governor, to whom the EC had sent its opinion on the row. The poll body’s recommendation has, however, not been made public.
Marandi termed the case the “first in India where a CM allotted a mining lease in his name while holding charge of the department”.
When asked why he was bringing up the mining lease case when the EC’s recommendation on the matter had not been made public, Soren told ThePrint: “Our charges are still intact. The lease allotment is on record, it’s not an allegation. A sitting chief minister who was head of the mining department allotted a mining lease in his name, that of his wife, his press secretary and his local representative. It’s an open-and-shut case.”
He asserted that “the matter is between the EC and the governor but Soren is guilty of wrongdoing and a case should be filed against him. This is the demand of our party today”.
Soren, in a letter addressed to the EC last year, had denied all charges against him. “At the outset, I deny and dispute all allegations of the BJP about my alleged disqualification for being a member of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly on the ground of a mining lease, obtained by me in May 2021,” he reportedly wrote.
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‘Govt willing to accommodate people’s views on UCC’
The STs account for around 26.5 per cent of Jharkhand’s population, according to the 2011 Census, and one of the issues the state BJP is highlighting is the “declining tribal population”.
It has particularly talked about the “changing demography” in the Santhal Pargana division, which comprises the six districts of Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Jamtara, Sahibganj and Pakur, which share borders with West Bengal.
This February, home minister Shah told a gathering at a state rally that CM Soren was turning a blind eye to the declining population of tribals, while Raghubar Das last month promised to implement the National Register of Citizens in the state if the BJP was voted to power, citing the “fast-changing demography in Santhal Pargana division”.
The party is also treading cautiously on the proposed UCC, which has ignited protests from the Jharkhand tribal community. RSS affiliate Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram cautioned this month that the “UCC should not undermine tribals’ customary laws”.
Marandi told ThePrint that the “government was making the law for the welfare for people”.
“Whosoever is opposing the UCC, I appeal to them to give their concern in writing. We first need to know the point of opposition. I will forward it to the BJP high command and the Centre,” he said.
He pointed out that the Law Commission was holding consultations on the issue and that Sushil Modi, chairman of a parliamentary panel on law, had suggested not including tribals in its ambit.
“It shows that the government is not pre-decided on the matter and is willing to accommodate the views of people. The party is also ready for consultation,” Marandi asserted.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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