After facing the heat following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case, Jharkhand CM and senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Hemant Soren bounced back to bag a landslide victory in the assembly elections on Saturday. JMM-led Mahagathbandhan crossed the halfway mark as the alliance was leading on 56 seats in the Assembly election. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance is ahead on 24 seats.
In the last few months, the BJP made strong efforts to keep the ground running by fielding Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma as co-incharge, along with Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Hemant’s SorenThe two senior leaders failed to dislodge the Hemant Soren-led government.
When the Jharkhand CM came under the scanner of the ED and was arrested by the probe agency on January 31 in connection with its probe into the money laundering case linked to the illegal possession of 8.36 acres of land, the saffron party attacked the JMM leader and cornered him over corruption charges, but the strategy went in vein as the BJP’s claims of anti-incumbency in the state were put to rest today.
With Hemant Soren behind bars, his wife Kalpana stepped up and took the charge and handled the election campaign against the saffron party. She reached out to the people in the state playing a victim card to garner sympathy. The Soren couple and other JMM leaders ran entire campaigns attacking the BJP over the arrest of a sitting CM, who was released from jail ahead of the polls.
The issue of Bangladeshi infiltration was raised by the BJP and was one of the key factors that played a big role in driving the results of assembly polls in the state.
The issue was raised by several leaders, right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Jharkhand BJP-co-in-charge Himanta Biswa Sarma. The saffron party took a hardline stance on the issue and vowed to deport Bangladesh Muslims to Bangladesh if voted to power.
During the poll campaign, the top brass of the BJP claimed that some parts of the state, including the Santhal Pargana region, are becoming a ‘mini-Bangladesh’. The issue fired back as the ruling coalition managed to convince the voters that the BJP is trying to infuse a communal agenda in line with ‘divide and rule’.
The BJP had no face to project as the Chief Minister, which came out as a disadvantage.
The probe agencies—ED and CBI—have managed to make it to the headlines for raiding and arresting top leaders from the ruling camp, which allowed the INDIA bloc to reach out to people claiming that these actions were politically motivated.
In a bid to oust the Hemant Soren government, the saffron party drew several leaders, including Sita Soren, sister-in-law of Hemant Soren, and his close aide Champai Soren. But the strategy failed to yield electoral dividends for the BJP.
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