The assembly elections in Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir were the last pitstop in the political calendar of what has been an eventful year. In the context of Indian politics 2014 has undoubtedly been the year of the BJP juggernaut. The BJP entered 2014, high on the victories of the December 2013 Vidhan Sabha elections and as the year progressed the BJP juggernaut rolled on, feeding on the discontent with a decade of Congress rule, gaining momentum and reaching a crescendo in the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. The verdict of 2014 was a landmark one in more ways than one(as discussed previously on this blog). It was the first time in nearly 30 years that a single party was able to win a simple majority and marked historical highs for the BJP, historical lows for the Congress. As Narendra Modi took over the reigns of the nation, his trusted lieutenant Amit Shah became the BJP party president and under the leadership of this gujarati duo, the BJP has acquired a new kind aggression and business like organization. It became evident in the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana where the BJP refused to play second fiddle to alliance partners, fought elections on their own and managed to form governments in both states. Jharkhand is another milestone in what has been an extraordinary year for the BJP. The BJP is back to power in Jharkhand making it the 6th state they have won in the last 12 months apart from the national elections.
The juggernaut is still rolling, but a closer look at the data from the results seems to suggest that it might be losing some steam. The rest of this post is about dissecting the results of Jharkhand 2014 in the context of previous assembly elections and the national elections 7 months ago to understand how heartland politics is evolving. Like always we start with a quick graphical summary of the result of Jharkhand assembly election of 2014 (below).
The BJP with its pre-poll ally the AJSU got to a simple majority winning 42 (37+5) of the 81 seats in the house. The Jhadrkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) came second with 19 seats to emerge as the principal opposition party in the state. Babulal Marandi's outfit JVM(P) came third while the Congress-RJD-JD(U) grand alliance was relegated to fourth place.
The next graphic (below) takes a deeper look at the result of the election by region(more on the regions in Jharkhand here), and by constituency type (General, Schedule caste, Schedule Tribe)
We can see in this graphic that though powered by strong performances in the Hazaribagh (North Chhotanagpur) and the Ranchi (South Chhotanagpur) regions the BJP did reasonably well across regions. It emerged with the most number of seats even in the traditional JMM stronghold of Santhal Pargana and Kolhan (Chaibasa division) was the only region it came second to the JMM. On the other hand the JMM returned good performances from its traditional stronghold of Santhal Parganas as well as Kolhan. Also though the BJP did very well in the General category seats, it did even better in the SC reserved seats and ran the JMM neck to neck in the ST reserved seats.
We next try to to look at the Jharkhand assembly elections in the context of previous assembly elections (graphic above). Though still a multi-cornered contests the vote shares are more spread out compared to previous elections. This election marks historic highs for both the BJP and the JMM, in terms of vote shares as well as seats. At 31% the BJP's voteshare is a good 5% higher than the highest vote share it has ever achieved. The same is true for the JMM, at ~ 20% it is 5% higher than the highest vote share it has ever achieved. On the other hand the Congress and the Janta parties are at historic lows in terms of vote shares as well as seats in spite of their grand alliance. Lastly the indipendents and others grouping, has also gone down for the second election in a row after the Madhu Koda years where a group of 5 independents literally held the state politics at ransom. Altogether it seems that the Jharkhand polity is moving towards a more consolidated mandate after years of failed experiments at coalitions.
Moving on, It must be noted that the result of the Jharkhand elections wasn't exactly around expected lines. A majority of the opinion polls had predicted the BJP to reach a majority on their own, and some had even predicted a complete sweep. In that context the BJP victory, was not all that comfortable, in an election where they were expected to canter across the finish line, they literally made it there on all fours.
Few of the opinion polls were possibly influenced by the results of the Lok sabha elections in May 2014 where the BJP won 56 of the 81 assembly segments on their own. Evidently a lot changed in the intervening 7 months and it is hence useful to drill deeper to compare the results of the Vidhan Sabha elections in December with the Lok Sabha elections in May.
The graphic above shows a comparison between May 2014 (LS) and Dec 2014(VS). National elections are different from state elections in the sense that the issues and personalities involved are different. Also while the BJP might have benefited from anti-incumbency in the national elections that factor would probably work against it in Jharkhand, having ruled the state almost 10 of its 14 years of existence. Still this is not a very flattering graphic for a BJP supporter.
A lot has been talked about BJP's slide in Kolhan, primarily owing to the shock defeat of former chief Minister Arjun Munda from the BJP stronghold of Kharsawan. However it has to be kept in mind that Kolhan is not the only under performer for the BJP. When compared to the May Lok Sabha elections the BJP has lost segments in almost all regions barring Santhal Pargana where they managed to retain their tally.
The comparison in vote shares between May and December (graphic above) provides further evidence of erosion of the BJP's support over these two elections. As we can see between May and December the BJP+ formation's vote share fell by a whopping 8.8%. Once again as we saw in the previous graphic the vote share has dipped in all regions. However it is the fall in vote share in the Palamau and the Hazaribagh regions that should concern the BJP the most. Between May and December the BJP+ voteshare from Palamau fell from close to 47% to a very modest 25.5% which is a fall of more than 22.5%. The fall in BJP voteshare is reflected in its seat tally from this regions. While they had won 9 out of 9 segments from Palamau in May, that number came down to 4/9 in December. The story is not very different for the Hazaribagh division where the BJP lost close to 12% in voteshare compared to LS 2014.
Now Palamau is an interesting region. Firstly it shares its borders with southern Bihar and Eastern UP and the cultural and political milieu of the region is contiguous to them. Bhawanathpur, the northernmost constituency of Palamau, is barely 200 kms from Varanasi- Narendra Modi's constituency and the epicenter of the Modi wave in eastern India. Secondly, along with the Hazaribagh division, it is perhaps the area in Jharkhand which is least tribal in character. There is only one ST reserved seat between the 34 segments that that comprise the two divisions. What all of this means is that if one were looking for a region in Jharkhand which is most representative of what is called the 'hindi heartland' then the Palamu Hazaribagh region would come closest. That is why understanding the reasons behind the massive fall in vote share for the BJP between May and December 2014 in these two regions becomes important. The impending assembly elections in neighboring Bihar and formation of the grand alliance between INC, RJD and JD(U) only makes it more interesting.
Many reasons could be proffered for the dip in BJP vote share across Jharkhand and the very significant dip in the Palamau and Hazaribagh region. Was it because of the lack of credible leadership at the state level? Is the central governments honeymoon period over? Is this verdict an assessment of the performance of Narendra Modi as prime minister? Is it a verdict against the the perceived resurgence in hindu fundamentalist forces, the gharwaapsis and the love Jihad non-issues? Or is it the grand Congress-RJD-JD(U) coming good?
The last possibility is most easily dealt with. Both the Palamau and the Hazaribagh regions have traditionally been regions where the Congress and Janta have been strong. One would have thought that together they would have made a significant force, at least in these two regions but that's not really the case. However, The BJP's loss in vote share has not really gone to the Congress-Janta formation. In reality their vote share went up by less than a percent in Hazaribagh, and went down by a few percentage points in Palamau (compared to May 2014). An unimpressive performance netting them a grand total of 3/35 seats in the two regions where they would have fancied their chances. The alliance execution also left a lot to be desired. In as many as 10 constituencies the alliance had multiple candidates and they could have won at least 2 more seats (Chhatarpur and Manika) had they fought better together. Even from the longer term perspective the vote shares of the Congress as well as the Janta parties are at historic lows in this region, grand alliance or not.
The lack of credible leadership for the BJP in Jharkhand cannot be ruled out as a cause of the dip in vote share between May and December. Jharkhand's short history of 14 years has been a sad tragicomedy of the failure of democracy and everyone including the BJP has played a part. If anything the Jharkhand verdict of 2014 has been a verdict against the traditional politics. All the former chief ministers who fought this election had a tough outing. Hemant Soren, the incumbent Chief Minister from JMM lost from the stronghold of Dumka but was saved the blushes by winning from Barhait, another JMM stronghold where the JMM has won all of the last 5 elections. Babulal Marandi, the first chief minister of the state and the face of JVM(P) lost from Dhanwar and Madhu Koda lost from Majhgaon. The biggest shocker though was the defeat of Arjun Munda another ex-chief minister and potential candidate for the top job from Kharsawan, another BJP bastion where they have won 4 of the last 5 elections and where they won by a whopping margin of close to 50,000 votes in the Lok Sabha elections just 7 months ago. There couldn't be a clearer signal from the voters on what they think of the existing state leadership, across party lines.
It is also instructive to check where the vote share that the BJP lost landed up. In the case of both Palamau and Hazaribagh regions the vote share lost by the BJP landed up primarily with the JMM and Independents/others. This has to be taken with the fact that the JMM wasn't even fighting in most of the assembly segments in the May elections, being given a measly 4/14 seats by the Congress in the UPA seat sharing agreement for Jharhand. Among the others who gained vote share in Palamau the BSP is prominent ending up winning their first seat ever in the Jharkhand assembly. One seat was won by sitting health minister Bhanu Pratap Shahi of the Naujawan Sangharsh Morcha.
To sum up the discussion about Jharkhand 2014, it is indeed another good victory for the BJP to cap what has been a great year for them. They managed to cross the line but only just and and the loss of vote share between May and December at close to 8% in the state (and as much as 20% in Palamau) is too big to ignore. The lack of credible leadership at the state level has most certainly been a factor, but the election does show that even 'tectonic shifts' are not permanent and every wave, even the Modi wave has a shelf life. For the Congress the slide continues and the results from Palamau show that just getting the alliance together is not enough, the key is still in the execution. Finally while the balance in BJP's alliances with regional parties is shifting towards the BJP it is moving the other way for congress alliances. The inability of the Congress to retain its alliance with the JMM might have been a big factor in this election and it would do well to be more realistic going into Bihar.
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