Tribal vote, across-the-board acceptability dictate BJP’s picks for Jharkhand, Punjab

BJP’s outreach to the tribal voters has been a sustained one

The importance of the tribal vote and the need for a face acceptable to all have weighed heavily in BJP’s choice of Babulal Marandi and Sunil Jakhar as new State chiefs for Jharkhand and Punjab respectively. Sources said the party plans to use the tribal card in Jharkhand a big way in the run-up to next year’s Lok Sabha polls. In Punjab, the party strives to take the middle ground given that the State’s politics revolves around the Sikh and Hindu communities.

The appointment of Mr. Marandi, who returned to the party in 2020 and is the current Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, seeks to arrest the slide since the 2019 Lok Sabha election when the BJP-All Jharkhand Students’ Union alliance secured victory in 12 of the 14 seats. In the subsequent Assembly election the same year, the BJP struggled in the 18 seats of the Santhal Pargana region.

Mr. Marandi hails from the Santhal community and has wide acceptance among Jharkhand’s tribal population as the State’s first Chief Minister in 2000. He has also been at the forefront of BJP’s attacks on the Hemant Soren-led government over corruption and the issue of illegal mining.

The party’s outreach to the tribal voters has been a sustained one, from picking Droupadi Murmu [also a Santhal] as the presidential candidate to senior BJP leaders touring Jharkhand extensively. Last year party chief J.P. Nadda attended a tribal ‘mahasammelan’ in Ranchi; this year Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Chaibasa and Dumka and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje toured Deoghar and Dumka.

Mr. Jakhar, who quit the Congress last year to join the BJP, is a prominent Hindu Jat face, three-term MLA, and a former Lok Sabha MP. Son of the late Congress leader Balram Jakhar who served as Lok Sabha Speaker from 1980 to 1989, his elevation could enable the BJP to harvest the influence the ‘Jakhar’ name still exerts in Punjab and Rajasthan’s border constituencies ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

Having faced widespread farmers’ wrath during the year-long stir against the now-repealed farm laws, the party also hopes to make inroads in rural Punjab leveraging Mr. Jakhar’s farming background. His organisational skills as Congress State president from 2017 till 2022 would also come into play as the BJP prepares for the 2024 elections.