NEW DELHI: Raghubar Das, governor of Odisha and former chief minister of Jharkhand, is neither contesting the 2024 assembly elections nor is a part of the election campaign, but when voters of the state go out to cast their ballot tomorrow he will be keeping his fingers crossed.
Raghubar’s daughter-in-law Purnima Das Sahu is the BJP candidate from Jamshedpur East assembly seat against Congress‘s Ajoy Kumar. However, despite the high-profile candidature, her road to the state assembly has been made difficult by the presence of a BJP rebel Shiv Shankar Singh, who has resigned from party’s primary membership accusing the saffron party of promoting dynasty politics and is contesting as an Independent.
55-year-old Singh, who has an RSS background, voiced strong opposition to the BJP’s decision to field Purnima from Jamshedpur East. He also pointed to several family members of influential figures who had been given tickets in the state, such as Meera Munda (wife of former Union minister and former Jharkhand CM Arjun Munda) from Potka and Babulal Soren (son of ex-CM Champai Soren) from Ghatsila.
“How can the BJP criticise ‘Pariwarvad’ when they are practicing it themselves?” Singh asked, adding that the party had no right to speak against it.
Like Jamshedpur East, several other seats of the state may also see a three-cornered contest with parties failing to convince the rebels to withdraw from the race. As parties gear up for the battle of ballots, they are wary of rebels-turned Independents impacting the prospects of their official candidates.
The state BJP has expelled 30 leaders from the party for contesting as Independent candidates against party nominees in various assembly seats. While not all of them may be in a position to impact the outcome, but they could damage the prospects of official candidates in seats where there is a close contest. The saffron party has already lost several leaders in the run up to the polls with many of those who were denied tickets quitting the party.
The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morch (JMM) also faces the problem of rebels, though not to the extent of the BJP. Several JMM leaders have also turned rebels and pose a challenge to the official candidates.
Meanwhile, the Congress, which suffered a shock defeat in Haryana assembly elections by ignoring the threat posed by Independents, faces relatively less pressure on this front as it is the junior partner in the ruling coalition.
AICC Jharkhand in-charge Ghulam Ahmad Mir interestingly admitted to the Haryana fiasco as he asserted there was no factionalism in the state unit like in Haryana and all decisions in the run up to the elections were taken by consensus among senior leaders.
The Congress general secretary also claimed that there was “pro-incumbency” in favour of Jharkhand’s INDIA bloc government which was moving forward under the leadership of Hemant Soren, while the BJP had “headless voices” with no one projected to lead the state.
(With agency inputs)