Early trends showed that the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led INDIA bloc was set to sweep the elections in tribal-dominated seats of Jharkhand, with its direct benefit transfer scheme for women, known as Maiya Samman, appearing to be a game-changer for the alliance.
Of the 81 assembly seats in the eastern state, the Election Commission website shows that the JMM-led was leading in 51 of the 80 seats for which trends are available.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance was ahead in 28 seats. The JMM led alliance has a vote share of 43.8% and BJP led alliance 37.2 for around 15% of the votes counted.
If the trends hold, the BJP campaign, which centred around alleging that infiltrators will take over tribal land appears, to have gained little traction, with the party losing badly even in the Santhal Pargana region, which has a tribal-Muslim population.
According to the trends, the BJP has performed poorly in rural areas, except a few seats, such as Potka, where former chief minister Arjun Munda’s wife Meera Munda was leading by over 11,000 votes.
Former chief minister Champai Soren, who quit the JMM and joined the BJP weeks before the elections, was locked in a close fight with his former protege Ganesh Mahali of his previous party in Saraikela. With 13 rounds of counting still to go, an upset could be in the works.
Geeta Koda, who quit the Congress for the BJP this February, was trailing by over 4,000 votes in Jagannathpur to Sona Ram Sinku from her previous party.
For JMM, chief minister Hemant Soren and his wife Kalpana Soren were ahead of their rivals whereas Hemant’s brother, Basant, was trailing from party bastion Dumka in Santhal Pargana. The JMM was ahead in 29 of the 43 seats it contested, its ally Congress was ahead in 14 of 29 seats, RJD in five of six seats it contested and CPI (ML) in two of three seats.
Political analysts said the BJP failed to eat into the JMM’s tribal-Muslim vote bank, which holds sway in around 47 of the 81 assembly seats. It also appears that the vote transfer within the alliance partners in the INDIA bloc was smooth.
They also underlined that Kalpana Soren was a major factor in her party’s performance, making significant headway with women voters and playing up the Maiya Samman scheme.
Of the 81 assembly seats, the turnout of women voters was higher than men in 68 and the overall women voting percentage was also higher than men.
From the trends, it appears that Jairam Mahato’s Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha dented the Kurmi votebank of BJP ally All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party, which contested on 10 seats and is ahead only in two seats. AJSU president, Sudesh Mahato is trailing from Silli assembly seat. Many of the Jairam’s candidates are in third position and have so far received more votes than the lead margins and in most cases the JMM led alliance is the beneficiary.
