Post CAA discord, Jharkhand to indicate national mood

Come December 23 and the first popular verdict in times the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) will be known. The election result in Jharkhand, a state that is among the fittest to deliver a judgement on an Act that has been criticised as ‘divisive’, will be out. With a population that could be described as diverse enough to reflect the ‘soul’ of India, this will be a key outcome to watch out for.

Whether the amendments in the Citizenship Act, allowing the conferment of citizenship to the ‘refugees’ of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, has violated the spirit of the Constitution will be decided by the Supreme Court. But gauging the popular mood is as important as the court’s verdict, if not more. In the long run, neither law, nor Constitution is static, and it is popular mood that has the last word on even the ‘essence’ or ‘spirit’ of the Constitution of any nation.

Follow the anti-Citizenship Act protests live

From that point, the verdict of the people of Jharkhand assumes a huge significance. But before we come to that, let’s look at some aspects of the election campaign so far.

Except for the first phase (for 13 seats held on November 30), the people of the state are voting (from 7th to 20th December) in an atmosphere charged with the Citizenship debate. Altogether, the people of 68 out of 81 seats of the state’s Assembly have voted or will vote soon with the new Act at the back of their minds. For the record, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other central leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have harped on Citizenship Act and NRC (National Register of Citizenship) in every rally in the state they have addressed. They have left no stone unturned to make it a big issue.

Significantly, the BJP in Jharkhand is facing an almost straight contest against a political combination (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal) that is opposed to the CAA. So the job of the voters is well cut out. Two non-aligned parties are in the fray too – All Jharkhand Students’Union (AJSU) (BJP’s partner in the last government) and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (led by former BJP chief minister Babulal Marandi). Both these parties are ideologically close to the BJP and may help the Saffron party later, but neither is expected to win a significant number of seats.

Five years ago, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) succeeded in winning 42 seats (BJP –37, AJSU – 5) with about 35 per cent vote-share (BJP – 31.26 and AJSU – 3.68). That was the first time any party or alliance could hit the magic figure (41) in the 81-member Assembly since its inception in December 2000. This time the BJP has braved it alone, dumping its ally, AJSU, for demanding additional seats. So, the responsibility of retaining the support base (roughly of one-third of the voters) of NDA is exclusively on the BJP.

Earlier this year, in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 11 of the 14 constituencies of the state with 51.38 per cent votes. But Jharkhand has always voted differently in Parliamentary and Assembly elections. Its verdict has always tilted heavily towards one combination in the Lok Sabha elections, but remained fractured in the Assembly polls. Even in 2014 Assembly elections, the NDA just scraped through. So, the last Assembly elections should be taken as the real indicator for this election.

Now, let us look at why Jharkhand is one of the fittest states to reflect the public mood.

The small, backward state has a population of 3.2 crore. The impression that a tribal state was being carved out of Bihar in 2000 was a myth, and only about 27 per cent of the people are tribal. Another 12 per cent belong to the Scheduled Caste category, and arguably 46 per cent to the OBC. That leaves 15 per cent for the general castes. Religion-wise, 14.5 per cent of the people are Muslim, and 4.3 per cent (almost entirely tribal) are Christian.

Jharkhand is a state which has hogged national headlines quite a few times in last five years for wrong reasons like attacks on Muslims. It is also a state where the ST-SC-Muslim combination, none of whom belong to BJP's traditional vote-bank, is more than half (about 53 per cent) of the population. That is why it looks like a fit state to reflect public mood on the Citizenship dispute.

Of course various other issues will play significant roles in the elections.

After having two of its tribal leaders (Babulal Marandi for two years and four months, and Arjun Munda for five years and nine months over three terms as chief ministers in earlier governments, BJP chose Raghubar Das, a non-tribal, to lead the state in December 2014. Das, the first non-tribal CM of the state, has become the first one to complete a full five-year term. So, the stability factor may help the BJP. Although the state’s economy (state GDP) is growing at about 10 per cent – and this would be seen as a positive – it remains to be seen what impact the recent economic slowdown has had on a state counted among India’s poorest.

On the other hand, the factors like communal disquiet and tribal sentiment (for not having a CM from the community) will go against the BJP.

BJP's wound in Maharashtra has somewhat been healed by the Karnataka by-election results. Now Jharkhand is to decide, for the time being, whether BJP's graph is going up or down in the aftermath of the amendments to the Citizenship Act.

(Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a Kolkata-based journalist and author of books including, A Naxal Story. He is a deputy editor at the Bengali daily, Aajkal)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.