Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Sutanu Guru
The resource rich but poor state of Jharkhand has been in the news of late for all the wrong reasons.
The resource rich but poor state of Jharkhand has been in the news of late for all the wrong reasons. There is that heart wrenching case of Ankita from Dumka, a 16 year old school going girl who was burnt to death by her stalker Shahrukh Hussain. The malevolent and premeditated crime has sparked outrage across the nation. Then there are the political shenanigans going on in Jharkhand with chief minister Hemant Soren in imminent danger of being disqualified as an MLA because he has alleged violated office of profit norms by owning a mine. Soren heads an alliance government with the Congress and RJD as partners. He has corralled 33 MLAs and taken them to a resort in Raipur, capital city of Chattisgarh which has a Congress government. Soren and his allies have accused the BJP of trying to topple his governmentby attempting to lure MLAs with bribes and ministerial portfolios. The have cited how the BJP has plotted and executed similar coups in Karnataka (2019), Madhya Pradesh 2000) and Maharashtra 2022). Incidentally, three Congress MLAs of Jharkhand were recently arrested by Kolkatta Police with Rs 50 lakh in case and face disqualification. The JMM led alliance had defeated the BJP in the 2019 assembly elections and currently enjoys the support of 48 MLAs in the 81 member assembly.
*JVM became a splinter group of the BJP in 2006 and merged with the party in 2020.
Source: Election Commission of India
One doesn’t know what will happen in the coming days and weeks. But one disturbing conclusion can be drawn from data: Jharkhand has seen chronic political instability ever since it became a state on November 15, 2000. A resource rich and poor Chattisgarh too became a state at the same time. But Chattisgarh has had 3 chief ministers in the last 22 years. In sharp contrast, chief minsters have been changed 14 times in Jharkhand. In fact, in a unique feat in political history, an independent MLA Madhu Koda became chief minister backed by the JMM, RJD and Congress and managed to survive almost two years. He was subsequently arrested on charges of corruption. The state has also gone through three stints of Presidents rule.
*JVM became a splinter group of the BJP in 2006 and merged with the party in 2020.
Source: Election Commission of India
Chattisgarh has perhaps seen political stability because it has witnessed straightforward bi polar contests between the BJP and the Congress. The BJP won three consecutive assembly elections in 2003, 2008 and 2013 while the Congress decisively won the 2018 election and chief minister Bhupesh Baghel is set to complete four years in office. In contrast, Jharkhand has seen multi polar contests of the kind seen in the previous three decades in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The accompanying chart shows how no party has been able to dominate the electoral landscape in the state during the four assembly elections held so far in the state. The best vote share won was by the BJP at 33.37% in 2019 when t lost the elections. The tribal home grown party JMM, that led the movement for a separate state has registered its highest vote share of 20.43% in 2014 when it lost the elections. The best performance of the Congress was in 2009 when it won 16.6% of the vote. Inevitably, with no party dominating any election, alliance governments have been the norm in the state, with all their internal contradictions and centrifugal forces.
The second chart which shows the actual number of seats won by the major contestants in the four assembly elections. The best tally achieved was 37 by the BJP in 2014, followed by 30 to JMM in 2019 and 30 to the BJP in 2005. The majority mark in the house of 81 is 42. Evidently, the data makes it clear that not a single party has ever won a majority in the state. This has resulted in unstable alliance governments; though one can argue that the state has become more politically stable in the last 8 years with only two chief minsters. In effect, Jharkhand saw 12 chief ministers and three stints of President’s Rule in the first 14 years of its existence.
Well known management Guru Aaron Levenstein famously said, "Statistics are like biknis. What they reveal is suggestive, but they conceal is vital." For those who are not familiar with the politics of Jharkhand, the data on vote shares and number of seats reflect that the BJP and the JMM led alliance are evenly matched. Thats not true. As the two charts show, There has been a party called JVM which has been in the fray in 2009, 2014 and 2019 elections. Its vote share was 9% and 10% in 2009 and 2014 before dropping sharply to 5.45% in 2019. The fact is: the JVM was an offshoot of the BJP and has merged with it in 2020. This data set, for those who know Jharkhand politics, shows how the BJP lost a historic opportunity to become the dominant political force in Jharkhand. In fact, it has won 33.37% of the vote share in 2019 even though it lost to superior coalition numbers. It need not have. JVM was formed by Babulal Marandi, the first chief minster of Jharkhand and a BJPtribal leader with an unimpeachable reputation for integrity. He was allegedly treated so badly by the leadership of the BJP that he revolted and formed his own party. Look at the impact it has had on electoral fortunes of the BJP. The combined vote share of the BJP and the JVM in the 2019 assembly elections was 39%. It would have been enough to beat the JMM led alliance.
So much for political blunders and instability. How has this affected the citizens of Jharkhand when it comes to the economy and ease of living? On the face of it, citizens of Jharkhand don’t seem to have suffered much rom the chronic political instability. Both states reported annual per capita incomes of about Rs 83,000. But again, data often hides more than it reveals. Niti Ayog published a comprehensive Multi Dimensional Poverty Report in late 2021 for all states of India. The data provided by this report provides ample evidence that tribal Chattisgarh is miles ahead of its tribal neighbour Jharkhand. The poverty rate according to this report is 29.91% for Chattisgarh compared to a national average of 25.1%; it is 42.16% for Jharkhand. The Report measures ease of living and quality of life based on 12 parameters. Jharkhand lags behind Chattisgarh in all. For instance, more than 44% of people in Jharkhand did not have access to clean cooking fuel compared to 29% for Chhattisgarh. Close to 40% lacked access to sanitation compared to 26% for Chattisgarh. About 36% of people in Jharkhand did not have a pucca house compared to 27% in Jharkhand. More than 17% of citizens in Jharkhand lacked access to drinking water compared to 10% for Chattisgarh. Clearly, Jharkhand has performed very poorly compared to Chattisgarh.
Could chronic political instability be a reason? Many analysts argue that political instability doesn’t necessarily affect economic performance. They point out how seemingly unstable alliance governments at the centre in India between 1991 ans 2014 did not adversely affect either economic growth or poverty reduction. It would be interesting to see how they interpret the data that emerges from Jharkhand and Chattisgarh.
