Jharkhand election results 2024: ‘Infiltration’ rhetoric falls flat, BJP-led NDA loses 27 of the 28 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in Jharkhand

Jharkhand Assembly election results show BJP's "Bangladeshi infiltration" rhetoric failed, with NDA losing ST seats and INDIA bloc gaining.

The Jharkhand Assembly election results declared on Saturday (November 23, 2024) reveal that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) rhetoric of “Bangladeshi infiltration” in the Santhal Pargana region failed to consolidate Scheduled Tribe voters in its favour, with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance losing 27 of the 28 ST-reserved seats it contested across the State.

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The BJP itself contested 25 of the 28 seats spread across the Santhal Pargana, Kolhan, South Chotanagpur, and Palamu regions. It won only in Seraikella, where former Chief Minister Champai Soren, who had jumped over from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, emerged victorious with a margin of more than 20,000 votes. However, the BJP lost the Khunti and Torpa seats to the JMM, bringing the NDA’s tally in ST seats down to one from three in 2019.

Located in the northeastern part of the State, many of the Santhal Pargana region’s seats border West Bengal. The INDIA bloc also secured about 52% of the votes in the region — its highest vote share across all regions in this election — marking an increase of over 12 percentage points compared with 2019.

Further, in Santhal Pargana, the BJP also lost general seats like Rajmahal, Sarath, and Godda.

In Rajmahal, where the BJP’s incumbent Anant Kumar Ojha had been winning since 2009, the JMM’s Mohammad Tajuddin won with a margin of over 43,000 votes. The BJP also lost Sarath to the JMM and Godda to the Rashtriya Janta Dal, which also beat the BJP in Deoghar, an SC seat that the party had won in 2019 and 2014.

In the Santhal Pargana region, the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance won 17 of the 18 Assembly seats, with the BJP coming out on top in Jarmundi, which was won by the Congress in the 2014 and 2019 Assembly polls.