Ranchi. During the election campaign for the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, both the NDA and India alliances left no stone unturned to sharpen their respective agendas and influence the voters. After the announcement of the elections, during the campaign that lasted for 35 days, the star campaigners of both the alliances held more than 500 big meetings and rallies. During the entire election campaign, issues related to security of ‘Roti, Beti, Mati’, Sarna Dharma Code for tribals and their identity remained prominent. In this election, every effort has been made to capitalize on populist schemes. This is the fifth assembly election after Jharkhand came into existence as a separate state. This is the first time that Bangladeshi infiltration became the biggest election issue here.
It was not even discussed in the previous elections. This issue was also raised by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders during the Lok Sabha elections held this year, but it did not prove to be very effective. After this, during the assembly election campaign, BJP raised this issue very aggressively. On October 2, 13 days before the announcement of elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to Hazaribagh and in a public meeting organized here, he described Bangladeshi infiltration as the biggest threat to Jharkhand and gave the slogan of saving ‘Roti, Beti, Mati’. After this, BJP made it the main election slogan. Earlier in the month of September, Jharkhand High Court, while hearing a PIL filed demanding to stop Bangladeshi infiltration in Santhal Pargana, had ordered to form a joint committee of the Center and the state in this matter.
This decision of the High Court further helped the Bharatiya Janata Party in sharpening the issue of infiltration. During the entire election campaign, Prime Minister Modi held six meetings in Jharkhand and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held 16 meetings. He raised the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration with utmost prominence in every meeting and directly held the JMM, Congress and RJD coalition government responsible for it. Apart from these, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who camped in Jharkhand during the entire election, went to each assembly and raised the issue at every level. Meanwhile, UP CM Yogi Adityanath also held about ten meetings and he linked the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration with his much talked about slogan of ‘If you divide, you will divide’.
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Due to the aggressive campaigning of BJP, ‘India’ block leaders Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Hemant Soren and Kalpana Soren also had to speak on the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration. He tried to hold the central government responsible for this. These leaders said that firstly, Bangladesh’s border does not directly touch Jharkhand and secondly, the responsibility of stopping infiltration on the international borders lies with the central government, not the state government. In comparison to the issue of infiltration, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Congress raised the issue of Sarna Dharma code of tribals. Most of the tribals living in Jharkhand are followers of ‘Sarna’ religion, but they are not able to register their religion in the census form.
There is no code or option for Sarna or Adivasi in the religion column in the form. The tribals of Jharkhand have been agitating for their religious identity for a long time. The Hemant Soren-led government had passed a proposal in the special session of the Jharkhand Assembly in the year 2022 to make provision for Sarna Dharmacode in the census form for the tribals and sent it to the Centre. During the election campaign, Hemant Soren and his alliance leaders raised this issue loudly and held the Bharatiya Janata Party responsible for stopping it. BJP leaders avoided speaking on this during the campaign. However, when asked questions in the press conference, Amit Shah and other BJP leaders replied that an appropriate decision would be taken after discussing the issue.
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In the election campaign, there was a lot of discussion about the ‘Mainiya Samman Scheme’, which is being given one thousand rupees every month by Hemant Soren Government to women between the age of 18 to 50 years. Under this scheme, money is being sent directly to the accounts of 57 lakh women for four months and the ‘India’ block tried to make it the biggest election weapon. In response to this, BJP announced the launch of ‘Gogo Didi Scheme’ and promised that if the government is formed, women will be given Rs 2100 every month. Hemant Sarkar was aware of this scheme of BJP and in the last cabinet just before the announcement of elections, he approved increasing the amount of ‘Mainiyan Samman Yojana’ from Rs 1000 to Rs 2500. Announcements like gas cylinders at concessional rates, unemployment allowance were also publicized with great enthusiasm from both sides. It will be interesting to see which of these issues the people of Jharkhand paid most attention to while voting.