Learning From Lalu: Congress Fears JMM's Bihar-Style Squeeze Ahead Of Jharkhand Election

The Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee met in September 2024. After the meeting, Jharkhand Congress president Keshav Mahto Kamlesh asked the state's chief minister, Hemant Soren, to form a ministry of backward classes welfare.

This sudden demand ahead of the assembly election turned out to be a part of the Indian National Congress’ plan of demanding more stakes in the Jharkhand faction of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive (INDI) Alliance.

Currently, the Congress is a junior partner in this alliance.

As election dates approach, the party is pushing hard for its demand of 35+ seats in the 81-member Jharkhand assembly. Seemingly, the party wants to ride the momentum from its 2024 Lok Sabha election performance.

However, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) plans to offer 20 seats to the Congress. The party needs to carry along, in addition to the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI(ML)).

Reports suggest that Soren wants to give half a dozen seats to CPI(ML) and also increase his own party’s share.

It might come as a déjà vu moment for the Congress as its share gets distributed. What Soren is doing to the Congress in Jharkhand has already been done (successfully) by Lalu Yadav in neighbouring Bihar.

The Congress had held a commanding position in Bihar until Lalu Yadav (then a Janata Dal candidate) became chief minister in 1990. Even in 1990, the Congress was able to secure 24.78 per cent of the vote, not far behind Janata Dal’s figure of 25.61 per cent.

The party’s main voting blocs were the upper castes, Dalits, and Muslims, while the Other Backward Castes' (OBC) backing was scattered. After Mandal politics came in, Dalits and OBC voters chose Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In the aftermath of the Bhagalpur riots, Muslims also found themselves on the Congress' wrong side, and later Lalu Yadav emerged as their new messiah.

In 1995, Congress’ vote share declined to 16.3 per cent. It could win just 29 of 329 seats. The BJP, with 41 seats, emerged as the main opposition party.

Then the Congress hurt its own chances by aligning with Lalu Yadav and saving his government multiple times at the peak of Jungle Raj. With this stunt, it also lost its leftover upper-caste votes, while RJD kept eating into its leftover Muslim and backwards vote.

In nearly three decades of the RJD-Congress association, Lalu Yadav has ensured that the Congress doesn’t rise up back to its past stature. 

From JMM’s point of view, slicing down Congress’ share is necessary for its own expansion and winnability of the alliance.

In the 2019 assembly election, JMM contested 43 seats and won 30 (69.76 per cent), while the Congress won 16 out of the 31 contested seats (51.61 per cent).

So the Congress' demand for more seats despite performing poorly is not sitting well with JMM.

Additionally, Soren is looking at this election as an opportunity to consolidate his hold on electorates, especially the tribal vote. JMM has done well to capitalise on his arrest by creating a sympathy wave among the tribal voters.

The party wants to contest not only on Congress seats like Kanke, Jagganathpur, Ramgarh, and Simdega but also wishes to seize those that the Congress was unable to win.

It is also expecting to benefit from some Congress defections.

Recently, Congress' Jharkhand general secretary in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir said that his party is targeting victory by winning over 30 to 40 seats in the state. According to Mir, even if they are able to secure 25 to 30 seats, it will enable his party to ask for a rotational chief minister if the INDI alliance is able to secure victory.

JMM did not hold back in its response. It did not like the fact that Soren’s leadership was questioned by its alliance partner. 

Party spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya said that JMM is in fact ignoring its members’ calls of contesting on all 81 seats to align with the Congress. 

"Based on the work we have done in the last five years, there is a lot of pressure on our organisation that JMM should contest elections on all 81 seats, and we are fully ready for it. If anyone has any confusion, then they should also remember 2009, 2014, and 2019,” said Bhattacharya.

He also expressed confidence that if JMM contests alone, it will secure at least 55 seats on its own.

Meanwhile, the Congress revealed a month ago that it is preparing to contest on all 81 seats.

The longstanding tussle between JMM and the Congress with regards to seat sharing for the upcoming Jharkhand assembly election may be causing a strain in the alliance at an important time.