Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are the only two north Indian states with a sizeable tribal population. Collectively, both states have 25 Lok Sabha seats, out of which five are reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates in Jharkhand and four in Chhattisgarh. In terms of demography, as per the 2011 census, 26.21% of Jharkhand’s population falls under the ST category while Chhattisgarh’s 34% population is comprised of Scheduled Tribes. However, despite sharing the borders, there are a few remarkable differences in both states.
While the politics of Chhattisgarh is mostly bipolar and revolves around Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that of Jharkhand has always been multipolar where alliances are a necessary key to electoral success. Further, in terms of demography, both states are quite different when it comes to the dominant ST communities deciding the political dynamics. While Gond, Kanwar and Bhatra are the most numerous and influential tribal communities of Chhattisgarh, in Jharkhand, the political discourse is controlled by Santhal, Munda and Ho Tribes. The only exceptions are Oraon Tribals who are found in both states.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Despite these differences, one can rightfully assume that these two states are the barometer for tribal politics in north India or the Hindi belt. In this context, what is the mood of ST voters in these states vis-à-vis the 2024 Lok Sabha elections?
NDA’s exemplary performance
In the 2019 elections, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) swept both states by winning 12 out of 14 seats in Jharkhand (BJP won 11 and alliance partner All Jharkhand Students’ Union or AJSU Party bagged one), and nine out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh. The performance seems exemplary but a closer, seat-by-seat look tells a different story. There are two ST seats in the Santhal-dominated Santhal Pargana region of Jharkhand-Rajmahal and Dumka.
In the Rajmahal ST seat, Vijay Kumar Hansdak of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) won defeating Hemlal Murmu of BJP by around 1 lakh votes, which looks like a comfortable margin. However, in the Dumka ST seat, JMM founder Shibu Soren lost to BJP’s Sunil Soren by around 47,000 votes. In the Khunti ST seat, ex-Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda of the BJP defeated Kalicharan Munda of Congress by a razor-thin margin of around 1,400 votes. Similarly, at the Lohardaga ST seat, Sudarshan Bhagat of the BJP defeated Congress candidate Sukhdeo Bhagat by a margin of around 10,000 votes only.
Past data reveals that though BJP managed to clinch these seats, the margins were quite small, so even small changes in voters’ mood can alter things completely. On the other hand, Congress candidates won by bigger margins. Like Rajmahal, in the Ho Tribe-dominated Singhbhum ST seat, Geeta Koda of Congress defeated Laxman Gilua of the BJP by around 72,000 votes. The wife of ex-Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda, Geeta Koda, is considered a leader of Ho Tribals here and has recently defected to the BJP, improving the prospects of the saffron party here.
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While retrospective data reveals that BJP’s situation appears a bit shaky in Jharkhand, things are a bit better for it in Chhattisgarh. In the Gond-dominated Sarguja ST seat of north Chhattisgarh, Renuka Singh of the BJP won by a margin of more than 1.5 lakh votes, defeating Khelsai Singh of Congress. Similarly, in the Kanwar-dominated Raigarh ST seat, Gomti Sai of the BJP won by a margin of 66,000 votes approximately, defeating Congress’ Laljeet Singh Rathia. The margins on both seats appear comfortable enough. And though in the Bastar region of south Chhattisgarh, Mohan Mandavi of the BJP won by a thin margin of 6,914 votes defeating Biresh Thakur of Congress in the Kanker ST seat, the margin of current Congress president Deepak Baij was also only around 38,000 votes at the Bastar ST seat. However, this time BJP has to trust new faces, as both its women tribal MPs – Renuka Singh and Gomti Sai – were fielded in the 2023 assembly elections and both are now MLAs in the state.
The Draupadi Murmu factor, Hemant Soren’s arrest and tribal CM issue
Keeping in mind the ST voters of the country, the BJP leadership fielded Odisha leader Draupadi Murmu as its candidate for the presidential election. Murmu, who comes from the Santhal Tribe which has sizeable influence in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and parts of Bihar’s Simanchal region, easily won the election. In fact, the BJP’s move did succeed in earning the goodwill of Santhal voters across these states as even opposition leaders of Odisha and Jharkhand supported her candidature.
However, the goodwill was short-lived in Jharkhand as the incarceration of Santhal leader and ex-CM Hemant Soren on graft charges – allegedly at the behest of the BJP government at the centre changed the mood completely. Tribal rights organisations and groups across the state projected this as an assault on the tribals and as a result, the BJP might face tribal backlash in this election.
Hemant Soren. Photo: X/@HemantSorenJMM.
According to Ranchi-based senior journalist Divyanshu Kumar, “The incarceration of Hemant Soren was used by JMM to mobilise the ST voters in general and Santhals in particular against the BJP and to a great extent they have succeeded in it. Due to this, the prospects of BJP in ST reserved seat of Jharkhand seem to be a bit gloomy, as the margins of the saffron party on these seats in the 2019 elections were also not great.”
Kumar maintains that the only exception to this trend is the Singhbhum seat due to the personal hold of Geeta Koda and her husband on Ho Tribals, who also dislike the Santhal dominance of tribal politics of the state. On the other hand, these factors find less or no resonance in Chhattisgarh where Santhals are absent and where BJP romped home in the recently held assembly elections.
While noting the differences in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, what’s also interesting is the different strategies that the BJP used in both states. In Jharkhand which always had an ST chief minister, it experimented by choosing a non-tribal CM Raghubar Das after winning the 2014 assembly elections. The experiment definitely backfired as the party could win just one ST reserved seat in the 2019 assembly elections.
Learning from that, this time it chose a Kanwar tribal, Vishnu Dev Sai, as the CM in Chhattisgarh after winning the 2023 assembly elections. While this decision will help the party in charging its Kanwar vote bank which holds the key to political success in north Chhattisgarh, it will also help it in reaching out to other ST communities of the state with respect to the 2024 elections.
Alliances and candidates hold the key to success
Though tribals play a crucial role in the politics of both Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, there are significant differences in them. The issues and factors affecting elections in the first are quite different from those in the other. While alliances matter in the multi-polar politics of Jharkhand, in Chhattisgarh’s bipolar politics, it is the candidates and winning equations that will matter more to clinch the tribal votes. While NDA appears to be struggling hard to maintain its past record on the ST seats of Jharkhand, the prospects of the BJP on Chhattisgarh’s ST seats seem more promising, under the current situation.
Rajan Pandey is a freelance journalist. He is associated with the survey agency People’s Pulse.
