As the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) coalition government led by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren is set to complete four years in power on December 29, entering into the election year 2024, will be quite challenging legally and electorally for the government.
To begin with, this is the longest term that a non-BJP government has been in power in the 23-year-long history of Jharkhand.
On the legal front, Soren faces massive corruption cases and will be facing his toughest political challenge as part of the Opposition INDIA bloc member to take on the BJP, which is buoyed by the poll victories in three Hindi-heartland states.
Soren has been questioned once by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a mining scam in the state and he has been summoned six times for questioning in a land scam case.
However, Soren did not appear before the central agency for questioning and approached the High Court and the Supreme Court against the ED’s order, but did not get respite from the courts.
According to ED sources, the central probe agency is now preparing to get a warrant from the court asking for Soren’s arrest.
The question now arises, if Soren goes to jail, will the current Jharkhand Government remain united in 2024 in his absence?
Even if all the constituent parties supporting the JMM such as the Congress and the RJD remain united till 2024 Lok Sabha elections, then who will take over as chief minister if Soren goes to jail?
In such a situation his wife Kalpana Soren or father Shibu Soren could be made the chief minister.
Soren has reiterated that a conspiracy is being hatched by the BJP and Central Government to send him to jail but he is not afraid.
He knows that even if he goes to prison it will hardly harm his reputation politically and his party JMM could gain sympathy from his core vote bank on the plea of political vendetta.
Where electoral challenges in 2024 are concerned, Soren is well-prepared.
Issues related to the interest of tribals and the indigenous people of Jharkhand have been at the centre of JMM’s politics.
It will certainly try to raise the political heat by raking up these issues in 2024, which is clear in several of the decisions taken by the Soren Government.
Last week, the Jharkhand Government moved the Domicile Policy Bill for passage by the state Assembly for the second time, ignoring the amendments suggested by the Raj Bhavan that had returned the legislation twice for reconsideration.
As per the Bill, people who have their names or their ancestors’ name in the ‘khatiyan’ (land records) of 1932 or earlier, will be considered local inhabitants of Jharkhand, and only such people would be eligible for Class III and Class IV jobs in the state.
This Bill was also passed in the Special Session of the Jharkhand Assembly on November 11 last year, but the Governor returned the Bill with the opinion of the Attorney General and asked the state government to reconsider it.
The Jharkhand Government rejected the Attorney General’s opinion and the objections based on it and got the Bill passed again in its entirety. Through this Bill, the Soren Government has tried to send the message that it will not back down from its agenda of protecting the identity of the people of Jharkhand.
However, this Bill will not be able to become a law without the nod of the Centre because the state government has proposed to include it in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution and has requested the Governor to send it to the Central government. Now, unless the Central government gets it passed by Parliament, it cannot become a law.
If the Central government does not agree to this Bill, then the Jharkhand Government will target the BJP during the election campaign on the issue. It will tell the electorate that the BJP wants to deprive the indigenous people and tribals of Jharkhand of their rights. During the forthcoming election campaigns, the BJP will have to counter this political move by the Soren Government.
Soren has swung into election mode by organising ‘Public Connect programmes’ and before the Jharkhand Government completes its fourth year in power, under the ‘Aapki Sarkar, Aapke Dwar’ campaign, camps are being organised in more than 4,300 panchayats and all municipal bodies across the state from November 24 to December 29.
Under this campaign, Soren has taken the initiative of visiting all districts across the state and communicating directly with the people. In the last 26 days, he has visited 20 out of 24 districts in the state and addressed more than two dozen public meetings.
Soren is taking up this campaign of ‘Public Connect’ extremely seriously, which can be understood from the fact that he did not even attend the core committee meetings of the Opposition INDIA bloc on December 6 and December 18 respectively, citing his busy schedule.
Soren, who is the Chief Minister as well as the Working President of the JMM, has already started a campaign to strengthen his ties with district, block and panchayat-level leaders and workers.
On December 14, he invited leaders and workers from Ranchi along with seven adjoining districts to his residence and interacted with them and told them to get the party cadre ready for 2024 election.
Soren said, “2024 is an election year. Opposition parties will try to break our integrity and unity in the name of dividing us on the basis of religious and community lines. There is a need to be cautious about this agenda. Our party workers should gear up for the upcoming Lok Sabha and state elections.”
In the coming months, Soren is also going to interact with the leaders and workers of other remaining districts of the state.
While connecting with the people as well as JMM leaders and workers, Soren is also making his election agenda clear.
Soren has directly held the previous BJP governments in the state and at the Centre responsible for the backwardness of Jharkhand. He is prominently raising the issue of outstanding dues of Rs 1,36,000 crore with the Central Government in lieu of mineral royalty of the state and land acquired for mines, through public rallies.
Plus, the JMM’s special election package is ready for the election year. Many populist schemes have been brought for this. An ambitious scheme called ‘Abua Awas Yojana’ was launched in the state in November.
The Soren Government is calling it a better welfare scheme than the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. Under this scheme, people of the state have been promised a house with three rooms and a kitchen.
The Jharkhand Government is publicising that under this scheme, houses will be given to eight lakh poor people and these houses will be bigger and more convenient than the two-room houses allotted to people under the PM Awas Yojana. For this, applications are being taken by setting up camps and applicants are being informed about receipt of applications on their mobile phones. This is being considered a big election masterstroke by the Soren Government.
Similarly, under the ‘Guruji Credit Card Scheme’, loans of up to Rs 15 lakh on simple interest without guarantee will be availed to poor students who have passed class 10th and 12th for higher education.
Other populist schemes like free buses for women, elderly and students under the CM Gram Gaadi Yojana, have been launched.
The scheme to provide free bicycles to school students in the state was on hold for the last three years. Now, the Jharkhand government has sent an amount of more than Rs 220 crore through Direct Benefit Transfer to the bank accounts of 4,90,000 students studying in various government schools to buy bicycles.
In the last six months, the Jharkhand Government has been steadfastly conducting examinations for appointments to vacant posts in the state. The dates for conducting graduate-level examinations for appointment of 26,000 assistant teachers, 5,000 Constables and for filling 2,000 class III posts have been announced.
The BJP has been vociferously raising the question of the failure of the government in providing employment for the last three years. As the poll bugle for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections sounds Soren will counter the BJP’s allegations by citing these appointments.
Soren and the JMM are also well-prepared to handle the internal challenges existing within the Opposition INDIA bloc. This time, the claim staked by Soren and his party regarding the Lok Sabha seats is bigger than in 2019 as the party has staked claim on eight out of 14 seats in the state as against the four in the last Lok Sabha elections as part of the Congress-led UPA.
The remaining seats were distributed between the Congress, RJD and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha. However, the UPA alliance was defeated on 12 out of 14 seats and the JMM won only in Rajmahal seat and Congress in Chaibasa.
The JMM will try to improve its poll performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but its primary focus is on the state Assembly elections scheduled in October-November 2024. In the 2019 Assembly elections, JMM was successful in becoming the single largest party by winning 30 seats on its own. This time, along with retaining the seats it has won, it has started working on a strategy to increase this tally.
Soren considers tribals and indigenous people as his core vote bank. Last time, the JMM-led alliance had won 26 out of 28 tribal-dominated seats in the state.
While the BJP is trying its best to woo the tribal population in the state, the JMM is doing all it can to keep its core vote bank united.