The verdict of Jharkhand Assembly elections declared today is on expected lines. The people have once again given a fractured mandate, making it a hung House. With no party or pre-poll alliance in a position to form the government, lobbying is on for a post-poll alliance to get a workable majority to form the next government.
Going by the latest trends, the Congress and its alliance partner Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) have won 25 of the 81 seats for which the election was conducted. The BJP and its ally JD(U) are in the second position with 20 seats.
Despite all odds, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), led by Shibu Soren, popularly known as Guruji, appears to be emerging as the ‘dark horse’ in this hung House. Having won 18 seats on its own, the JMM is undoubtedly in a very advantageous position. No wonder, the JMM leaders have been saying it loudly that the pre-condition for any talk pertaining to alliance would be the chief minister’s post for
Guruji.
The Congress with all its eagerness to form the next government in this state is certainly not in a position to ignore the JMM’s demand lest it may form an alliance with the BJP and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), which has also won five seats. Both Shibu Soren and his son Hemant Soren, the newly elected MLA, have also gone on record to say that for them there was no difference between the BJP and the Congress.
Although the BJP, for the moment, is lying low with its leaders talking about sitting in opposition but given a chance to play a role in government formation, the party would not miss the opportunity.
Notably, Babulal Marandi’s JVM’s performance has been the best in this election by winning 11 of the 20 seats they contested. But, he is fully aware of the difficult circumstances he and his ally Congress are put in by the fractured verdict. Therefore, he will not be a hurdle to a post poll alliance with JMM.
Marandi, who also happens to be the first Chief Minister of Jharkhand, has said he would abide by the decision taken by his ally — Congress. Notably, Lalu Yadav and his party RJD appear to have become irrelevant in government formation this time even though he has won five seats out of the 54 he had contested in alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP and the Left parties like CPI and CPM.
The parties to have drawn a blank in Jharkhand are not only LJP, CPI and CPM but also the BSP and Trinamool Congress. The BSP had fought on 78 seats and TMC on 37. It has also become apparent from the poll verdict that the issues on which the election was fought like corruption, price rise and development had no impact on the electorate.
While the corrupt and incarcerated former ministers like Enos Ekka, Harinarayan Rai and Bandhu Tirkey have won the polls from their old constituencies, Geeta Koda, wife of infamous former Chief Minister Madhu Koda, has also won by a margin of 25,000 votes from her husband’s old constituency Jagannathpur.
On the other hand, high profile leaders of Congress like Pradeep Balmuchu, chief of Jharkhand state Congress, Alamgir Alam, former Speaker, Rameshwar Oraon, former Union Minister of State, Thomas Hansda, Furkan Ansari and Stephen Marandi, former Deputy Chief Minister, have all lost the polls. Another former Deputy Chief Minister and prominent JMM leader to have lost is Sudhir Mahto.
