Former BJP Chief Minister Babulal Marandi is fighting elections with his new outfit JVM. Is he also slated top go the Uma Bharati and Kalyan Singh way?
Results of Lok Sabha elections 2009 in Jharkhand will show whether Babulal Marandi will meet the fate that Uma Bharti in Madhya Pradesh or Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh met with after leaving the Bhartiya Janata Part (BJP) or he will write a different chapter in the history of rebellions in Indian political parties. He left the party of which he was the most prominent face in Jharkhand with the aura of a martyr. He was duly rewarded by the people when he was re-elected from Koderma in 2006, a seat he had quit after leaving the party .Since then he has been trying to acquire some political space in the state which has remained mired in squabbles among political parties and their leaders.
Babulal Marandi has an impressive record in public life so far. He came into the BJP through the RSS-VHP route and virtually led the Vananchal movement, the name given by the BJP to the movement for the creation of a separate state comprising the plateau of Bihar for which he was groomed by none other than Kailashpati Mishra, the party stalwart who guided its activities in the undivided state .Known for his impeccable record as a worker of the BJP he defeated the redoubtable Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo in Dumka in 1998. In 1999 he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the same seat but in 2004 he moved to Koderma and was the only nominee of the BJP in Jharkhand to have made it to the 14th Lok Sabha.
As the first Chief Minister of Jharkhand, a position he was asked to take over after being withdrawn from the Union Council of Ministers by the party, he faced opposition not only from the coalition partners such as the JD(U) but also from his own partymen. He also antagonized the large urban population of the state which is dominantly non-tribal by raising the domicile issue ignoring the fact that this segment had contributed significantly to sustaining the BJP in this region.
Marandi after leaving the party had obviously hoped that his image and reputation as a person of integrity, he would draw people ,specially tribals to rally around him .But so far his calculation have gone awry as the Jharkhand Vikas Manch Morcha (JVM) that he floated has so far only attracted discards from other political outfits.
Babulal Marandi, a former national vice-president of the BJP, still speaks with the mannerism and accent of a RSS pracharak but his JVM has fielded two Muslims including one Haji Hussain Ansari for the prestigious Ranchi seat which is being contested among others by Union Minister of State for Food Processing Subodh Kant Sahay and BJP veteran Ram Tahal Choduhary .The JVM’s other Muslim candidate is Dr Saba Ahmad from Giridih .He is a former deputy speaker of the Jharkhand Assembly and is a known party hopper.
The JVM is contesting all 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state and its nominees, apart from the two Muslims include six tribals, three OBCs, one Dalit and two upper caste Hindus. But the question being asked is whether the JVM would have any impact on the electorate? Or all its nominees would end up as “also ran” candidates? They do not even seem to pose any threat to the BJP, the party against which their leader Babulal Marandi had staged a rebellion. Instead some of them like Dr Saba Ahmad in Giridih appear to be facilitating a smooth sail for BJP’s Ravindra Pandey.
Babulal Marandi himself who had won the Koderma seat twice within a span of two years, the second time through a by-election, is having a tough time against two formidable candidates, Pranav Verma of the RJD and Tilakdhari Singh of the Congress. Verma is the son of the late Ritlal Prasad Verma, a BJP stalwart of the erstwhile Chotanagpur belt and Singh is a known Congress worker of the region. Both have a significant presence of their castemen — Verma of OBCs and Singh of upper castes, especially Bhumihars. Marandi,on the other hand, does not have the Santhal strength behind him, the tribe to which he belongs.
The only JVM nominee who appeared to be in contest was Pradip Yadav from Godda. Yadav had won this seat in 1999, was a minister in the Arjun Munda cabinet but quit the BJP some months back to be with Babulal Marandi hoping that he would get the support of Santhals who have a large presence in the constituency. But he seems to have lost the advantage after the BJP candidate Nishi Kant Dubey received serious injuries during a clash between JVM and BJP supporters. The JVM candidates’ brother is a named accused in the FIR that the police have filed.
Suraj Mandal is another politician of Jharkhand who is struggling to seek a place on the frontlines of the state’s political activities. Once considered as an alter ego of Shibu Soren, he was known as the de facto chief minister of Bihar because of his influence on Lalu Prasad Yadav during 1990-95. He had brokered an alliance between Soren and Yadav when the latter sought the JMM support to form his first government. Later he also was named the vice-Chairman of the Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council (JAAC).But after the formation of Jharkhand as a separate state, Suraj Mandal had been cooling his heels in the backyards of his home district, Godda. He surfaced recently with the formation of his Jharkhand Vikas Dal (JVD) but the outfit does not appear to have been noticed by anyone.
The All Jharkhand Students’Union (AJSU) has been another political organisation that has been known for over two decades for its proximity to many Jharkhand leaders. The Aajsu has been participating in every election and for the 2009 Lok Sabha polls it has fielded candidates for six seats which include important constituencies like Jamshedpur and Hazaribagh.
However, reports suggest that AJSU candidates can harm only JMM votes in Jamshedpur from where Suman Mahto, wife of slain JMM leader Shailendra Mahto, is in contest with former CM and BJP leader Arjun Mahto .Similarly in Hazaribagh its candidate Chandraprakash Choudhary will wean away some of the votes from the CPI candidate and the sitting MP Bhuvaneshwar Choudhary. The BJP candidate in this constituency is former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha. Thus whether it is the JVM or the AJSU either of them is likely to only eat into non-BJP votes defeating Babulal Marandi’s primary objective.