Ranchi/Jamshedpur: In the tribal stronghold of Kolhan division which comprises three districts and 14 assembly segments, opposition BJP managed to open its account this time. From zero in 2019, the saffron party bagged two seats while the NDA clinched three seats.
However, it was the INDIA bloc led by JMM which had the last laugh as the results for 2024 assembly polls were out on Saturday.The JMM-Congress combine won 11 seats in total. Among the nine ST reserved seats in the division, JMM won seven and Congress bagged one.
While BJP regained the prestigious Jamshedpur (East) and its ally JD(U) clinched Jamshedpur (West), its solitary win in Seraikela, the only tribal reserved seat in the division, is something which the saffron camp wouldn't be so proud of. Despite its aggressive tribal outreach riding high on the plank of Bangladeshi infiltration to polarise voters in the Adivasi heartland, voters have outrightly rejected BJP.
In the 2019 assembly polls, BJP could win two tribal reserved seats —Khunti and Torpa — out of the total 28, leading to its route despite offering the state its first stable govt between 2014 and 2019 but this time, it was further restricted to just one seat. Its ally, Ajsu-P, too, lost Jugsalai to JMM.
BJP's attempts to make inroads into tribal pockets riding on "borrowed players", too, didn't work in its favour. Ahead of the assembly polls, BJP allegedly engineered chinks in the INDIA bloc by inducting former CM Champai Soren, a JMM stalwart, into its fold hoping to conquer Kolhan, and the other tribal stronghold, Santhal Pargana. However, none of its ploys worked. Even ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, it inducted turncoats — Sita Soren and Geeta Koda — and fielded them as BJP candidates from Dumka and Singhbhum parliamentary seats but both suffered defeats. In assembly polls, too, the two suffered the same fate.
According to a BJP insider, the saffron camp's overreliance on turncoats and over-hyped agenda to polarise tribal voters backfired. The senior BJP leader from Kolhan said, "In the Kolhan region, Bangladeshi infiltration turned out to be a non-issue, but despite this, all star campaigners kept harping on it. Also, the party banked too much on the Champai factor but among the tribal pockets, more than the leader, the bow and arrow (JMM's symbol) is significant."