Focus on local issues and tribal rights key factors in JMM’S win

JMM LEADER HEMANT SOREN WAS CM FOR A BRIEF PERIOD IN 2013 BUT AFTER LEADING HIS ALLIANCE TO A BIG VICTORY, HE WILL BE IN A MUCH STRONGER POSITION THIS TIME

NEWDELHI:SMART alliances, a focus on local issues, and the ability to leverage the tribal card without offending other constituencies — that’s what worked for the Jharkand Mukti Morcha in the assembly elections

Analysts, party workers, as well as leaders of the JMM’S allies in this election, the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal credit Hemant Soren, 44, for taking the grouping to 47 seats in the 81-member assembly, a clear majority

Soren, the choice of all allies for the top post, and the son of the party president and former Union minister Shibu Soren, was chief minister for a brief period in 2013, but this time, he is in a stronger position

According to HT analysis of data provided by TCPD, the regional party has managed its best ever performance The vote share has gone up from 155% in 1980 to 378% this time

“For me, today’s the day that I have to promise to fulfil all the wishes of the people of Jharkhand Their verdict is the result of the hard work that Shibu Soren put in and the time to make his dreams come true has come,’’ Soren said

The JMM’S campaign began more than a year ago in September 2018 when Soren kicked off his Sangharsh Yatra in five phases across the state Not only did the move establish Soren as the leader of opposition, but it also gave him a platform to understand and reflect people’s issues So, for instance, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi got ready to inaugurate the Mandal Dam in January, Soren focussed on how it would displace indigenous people This helped him become a champion of local issues, especially rights of the tribal people

“Soren was able to convince the people that the Central government was not for tribal rights,’’ admitted a BJP leader on condition of anonymity

The party and its allies also shrugged off their abysmal performance in the Lok Sabha election this summer when they won two of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state; the JMM won one But the party knew the state elections would be different

The second aspect of the JMM campaign was to not get swayed by the BJP’S campaign and to keep the narrative local “We changed our strategy so that Soren’s speeches would be solution centric He would talk about problems but only with a solution,’’ said a key party aide What started as the Sangharsh Yatra, metamorphosed into a call for change or a “Badlav Rally’’ which went on for two months from end August to September

By the time polling kicked off, the country was in the thick of a raging national debate, including the controversial Citizen’s (Amendment) Bill which, many feared, would polarise the electorate along religious lines Around 14% of the electorate in the state is Muslim

JMM decided that it would still focus only on strong local issues — such as the Forest Rights Act and the linkage of Aadhar with the Public Distribution System (PDS)

What was important to Team Soren to establish him as a panstate leader was that he pulled in non-tribal voters So the JMM manifesto appealed to general voters too by raising the issue of unemployment They offered in their manifesto an unemployment allowance of ~5,000 to 7,000 depending on qualification

All of this succeeded, one JMM strategist said, in projecting Soren as a pro- people person, and provided a contrast to chief minister Raghubar Das, seen widely as inaccessible “We made sure that we established a major social media campaign so that people could see and hear him throughout the election cycle,’’ said the JMM leader

“This is the first time we saw a change in Hemant Soren’s mindset and approach It was no longer about pulling down the other partners in a bid to gain supremacy in the alliance He must keep in mind that BJP has lost power but not the support base,” said LK Kundan, associate professor at Ranchi University