Jharkhand: NDA Mounts Tough Challenge To JMM In Dumri Assembly Bypolls

The BJP-led NDA has put up a fierce fight to wrest the Dumri Assembly seat, where by-elections are scheduled for 5 September, from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) which heads a coalition government in the state. 

The bypolls have been necessitated by the death of incumbent MLA, Jagarnath Mahto, who had represented the seat for four successive terms from 2005 till his death in April this year. 

Dumri is considered to be a bastion of the JMM which has won this seat in Jharkhand’s northern Giridih district bordering Bihar in the last six Assembly elections. 

The JMM has fielded Bebi Devi, the widow of the deceased Jagarnath Mahto, who was the education and excise minister in the Hemant Soren government. 

The All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU), a constituent of the NDA, has fielded its veteran leader Yashoda Devi. Yashoda Devi is being backed by the BJP. 

Apart from AJSU leaders, a number of senior BJP leaders--former chief ministers Babulal Marandi and Raghubar Das, Union Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi Yadav, BJP national vice-president and Jharkhand-in-charge Laxmikant Vajpayee and Rajya Sabha MPs Deepak Prakash and Aditya Sahu, among many others--have been campaigning hard for Yashoda Devi. 

The JMM is banking on the sympathy factor. Jagarnath Mahto, nicknamed ‘Tiger’ Mahto because of his strongman image, was both liked and feared in Dumri and ruled over the constituency with an iron hand. 

Jagarnath Mahto also had a Robin Hood-type reputation; he used to help many poor families and had assisted many poor people get jobs, free medical treatment, rations and education. As such, he had a loyal support base in the constituency. 

The JMM is hoping that Dumri’s electorate will remember Jagarnath Mahto and vote for his widow. In fact, evoking memories of Jagarnath Mahto and asking for votes in his name has been the central feature of the JMM’s poll campaign. 

However, his widow, Bebi Devi, is a little-known face and though she was inducted into the cabinet after her husband’s death, she has little to show for the five months that she has been a cabinet minister.

To make matters worse for her, Bebi Devi is having to fend off rumours of corruption. 

The AJSU and BJP are also mocking her for getting only the excise portfolio while her late husband handled both education and excise. 

The NDA has been ridiculing the JMM leadership for taking away books (education) from Bebi Devi and leaving her with only a liquor bottle (representing the excise portfolio). 

A number of memes have gone viral on social media on this, acutely discomfiting the JMM and Bebi Devi. 

The NDA’s primary campaign planks are corruption charges faced by the JMM leadership and non-fulfillment of promises made by the JMM during its campaign in the last Assembly elections in 2019. 

Former chief minister Raghubar Das told Swarajya that the focus of the NDA’s campaign was to highlight the corruption by chief minister Hemant Soren and his family, and the JMM’s broken poll promises. 

AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto has been highlighting the unkept promises of the JMM. “The JMM has failed to create five lakh jobs a year as it had promised. It had pledged to provide three-room houses to the poor, but not a single family has got such a house. It had promised ‘Kisan Pathshalas’ to help farmers increase yield and boost their incomes; this promise has also remained unfulfilled,” he said. 

“A party that cannot fulfil even one poll promise has no right to remain in power. It should be voted out of power immediately,” said Mahto. 

AIMIM’s entry means trouble for JMM: 

What has queered the pitch for the JMM is the entry of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the electoral fray. 

Muslims constitute about 30 per cent of Dumri’s electorate and are a crucial factor in elections. In the past, Muslims had voted almost en bloc for the JMM, thus giving the party solid leads over its rivals. 

But with the entry of the AIMIM, which has fielded Abdul Mobin Rizvi, the JMM can no longer take the Muslim vote for granted. 

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi campaigned for his party’s candidate in Dumri Wednesday (August 30). “The JMM has taken Muslims for a ride and treated Muslims only as a vote bank to be used to win elections. It has done nothing for Muslims, who have remained very backward and poor in Jharkhand. The JMM does not deserve the support of Muslims any more,” he told large crowds at two rallies he addressed in Dumri Wednesday. 

Owaisi’s rallies attracted large crowds, causing consternation in the JMM camp. The AIMIM has been telling Muslims of Dumri that they have gained nothing by supporting the JMM all these decades. 

“The condition of Muslims in Jharkhand is pathetic. The JMM remembers Muslims only during elections and casts them aside after elections. Muslims are deprived of education, healthcare, jobs and other opportunities. Muslims lag behind every other community in all spheres in Jharkhand. So we are asking Muslims to give the AIMIM a chance and see how we change their lives,” AIMIM’s Jharkhand unit president Mohammad Shakir told Swarajya. 

The AIMIM’s presence will surely cause a split in Muslim votes. And that’s bad news for the JMM. 

“It’s not just Muslims, all sections of the population of Dumri and Jharkhand are unhappy with the JMM. It has done nothing for the people. JMM leaders have only lined their own pockets. They have syphoned off funds meant for the poor and enriched themselves,” said former Chief Minister Marandi. 

Political observers say that the acute incumbency that the JMM-led ruling alliance suffers from in Jharkhand may cause an upset in the Dumri by-elections. 

The serious allegations of corruption and land-grab against Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his family, the liquor and land scams that have rocked the state of late and the lacklustre performance of the state government has taken the sheen off the JMM, especially its first family. 

That is why the NDA feels it has a very good chance of wresting Dumri away from the JMM this time. 

The BJP-led NDA is also hoping that an upset for the JMM in Dumri will be the curtain raiser for the Assembly polls next year and will set the tone for the JMM-led alliance’s defeat in 2024.