Jharkhand By-Elections: JMM Staves Off Tough Challenge From NDA To Retain Dumri Stronghold

The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has staved off a tough challenge from NDA constituent All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU) to retain the Dumri Assembly seat. 

The seat fell vacant with the demise of its sitting JMM MLA Jagarnath Mahto, who had represented the seat for four successive terms from 2005 till his death in April this year. 

The JMM had fielded Jagarnath Mahto’s widow Bebi Devi. She defeated the AJSU’s Yashoda Devi by a margin of 17,153 votes. 

Bebi Devi got 1,00,317 votes while AJSU’s Yashoda Devi secured 83,164 votes. The AIMIM’s Abdul Momim Rizvi came a distant third with 3,472 votes. Three Independent candidates who were in the fray got, between themselves, 3223 votes. 

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

Jagarnath Mahto, who was the excise and education minister in the JMM-led coalition government in the state, was widely liked and feared in equal measure in Dumri. He was popularly known as ‘Tiger’ Mahto because of his strongman image. 

The victory of his widow, Bebi Devi, can be attributed largely to the sympathy generated by ‘Tiger’ Mahto’s death. 

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 had evoked memories of Jagarnath Mahto and asked for votes in his name during the election campaign. 

Bebi Devi was inducted into the cabinet and given the excise portfolio soon after her husband’s death. That was a smart move on the part of the JMM to retain the support of Mahta’s formidable army of loyalists. 

The JMM had, apart from asking for votes in the name of the deceased MLA, also promised fast-paced development of Dumri. 

The BJP had campaigned hard and had deployed its senior state leaders to canvass support for the AJSU candidate. 

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 from the BJP, had campaigned hard for Yashoda Devi. 

The NDA’s primary campaign planks were 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. 

The NDA had also hoped that the entry of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the electoral fray would queer the pitch for the JMM.. 

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. 

The NDA had hoped that the AIMIM candidate Abdul Mobin Rizvi would get a significant chunk of Muslim votes. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi had campaigned for his party’s candidate in Dumri last week. 

But Rizvi ended up with only 3472 votes, less than the number of 3650 NOTA votes.  

The JMM’s victory in Dumri is in line with the general trend of the ruling party winning in by-elections.