Jharkhand political crisis: How the numbers stack up for Hemant Soren govt

By: Yash Gupte

The state has been witnessing high voltage political drama since last few days after there were speculations of Jharkhand’s CM disqualification as a MLA for allegedly violating the election rules and procedures by extending himself a mining lease.

There lies a state in the south of Bihar and in the west of West Bengal, the state of Jharkhand. Recently, Jharkhand has been the talk for different incidents like the allegations of mining scam and corruption on Hemant Soren, the CM of Jharkhand and the infamous horrifying incident which took place in Dumka. But other than this, the most discussed is the current ongoing political drama in the state. The state has been witnessing high voltage political drama since last few days after there were speculations of Jharkhand’s CM disqualification as a MLA for allegedly violating the election rules and procedures by extending himself a mining lease.

A meeting was held by the MLAs of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to discuss the further strategy. After the meeting, the MLAs along with the CM Hemant Soren were seen having a quality time at Latratu Dam in Khunti district of Jharkhand. Hemant Soren was sighted at the Latratu dam having a boat trip with UPA MLAs and ministers. The leaders, who had travelled from Ranchi, were spotted escorting him to a guest house close to the dam. Three buses carrying Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Congress, and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLAs departed the state capital in the afternoon, and they spent a short time at Latratu in Khunti district before returning to Ranchi.

There was a war of words between the government and the opposition as the UPA MLAs are of the opinion that the BJP is trying to destabilize the government in the state just like Maharashtra and form a new government in Jharkhand. The BJP has been demanding the resignation of CM Hemant Soren over the allegations of violating the section 9A of the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951 which deals with disqualification for government contracts. The BJP had submitted a memorandum to the governor of Jharkhand in February this year seeking disqualification of Hemant Soren from position of MLA under the above mentioned act. Later, on 30^th August, the UPA MLAs reached Mayfair resort in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur where they met the Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel. On Wednesday, four cabinet ministers of Jharkhand flew back to their home state from Chhattisgarh for a cabinet meeting scheduled on Thursday morning. According to the reports, the UPA MLAs will have a meet with the Governor of Jharkhand Ramesh Bais amid the high voltage political drama in the state.  

Taking into consideration the current political crisis in Jharkhand, the question arises about the stability of the government and the seat share of each party in the Jharkhand legislative assembly. The chart below shows the performance of political parties in Jharkhand in last two elections.

Source: Election Commission of India

The BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the 2014 Jharkhand assembly elections with 37 seats in the 81 member house and managed to form the government comfortably but the equations changed in 2019 as the BJP could not manage to emerge as the single largest party and this time it was the JMM led by Hemant Soren. The JMM bagged 30 seats, 11 more as compared to the 2014 assembly elections and on the other hand the BJP witnessed a fall of 12 seats in the 2019 assembly elections. The INC or the Congress party managed to win 16 seats in 2019 as compared to 6 in 2014 elections. The majority mark in the Jharkhand legislative assembly is 41 which is not an easy mark for the BJP to cross with only 25 seats. Though the JMM managed to win maximum number of seats in the 2019 assembly elections, the vote share of the BJP remained highest at 33.37% while the vote share of JMM was 18.72% but also it is important to observe that the BJP had contested 79 seats and JMM had contested only 43 seats. Only the time and the unfolding circumstances will decide the fate of the current government in Jharkhand amid the high voltage political crisis.