Seasoned political parties in Jharkhand were in for a surprise after a new outfit’s performance went beyond expectations in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election.
The Jharkhandi Bhasha Khatiyan Sangharsh Samiti (JBKSS), led by 29-year-old Jairam Kumar Mahato, contested as independents on eight seats in Jharkhand; out these eight, the outfit’s candidates came third on six Lok Sabha seats.
Mr. Jairam Kumar Mahato, who contested from Giridih Lok Sabha seat secured nearly 3.5 lakh votes although the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) candidate Choudhary won the seat with 4,51,139 votes.
JBKSS is a two-year-old outfit which has been raising local issues like domicile and employment for locals in the State. For the past two years, he has been demanding to implement the 1932 Khatiyan (land settlement) Policy which deals with the Jharkhandi identity and land records of 1932 would be the criteria to verify the State’s domicile and employment policy. It also has a provision to reserve grade three and grade four government jobs to locals.
This issue has finally established him as leader mainly among the youths which resulted in getting decent vote. Apart from Giridih, he fielded candidates in Dhanbad, Chatra, Hazaribagh, Dumka, Ranchi, Singhbhum, and Koderma Lok Sabha seats.
The five other seats where JBKSS candidates stood in a third position are Devendra Nath Mahato in Ranchi with 1,32,647 votes, Sanjay Kumar Mehta in Hazaribagh with 1,57,977 votes, Mohammad Eklak Ansari in Dhanbad with 79,653 votes, Damodar Singh Hansda in Singhbhum with 44,292 votes, and Manoj Kumar in Koderma with 28,612 votes.
Similarly, Babylata Tudu stood fourth on Dumka Lok Sabha seat with 19,360 votes whereas in Chatra seat, Deepak Kumar came on seventh position with 12,565 votes.
“We are not an established political party. We have been around only for two years; we still got over 8.2 lakhs votes. In Giridih, I got 27% vote share in only the first time we contested the election. We did not have any booth management and got the money to purchase banners and posters to contest elections through crowd funding. People of Jharkhand and youth supported us. Blessed with the people’s support, we have decided to contest the upcoming Assembly election in Jharkhand on all 81 seats. We have already got the name of our political party from the Election Commission of Jharkhand – Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM) but have not yet received the symbol,” Mr. Jairam Kumar Mahato told The Hindu.
In vote share, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) topped the position in the state with 44.60% followed by the Congress with 19.19%, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) with 14.60%, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) with 2.77%, and the AJSU with 2.62%. Others received 11.7% of the vote share.
Mr. Mahato, who is a PhD student of English literature from Binod Bihari Mahato Koylanchal University in Dhanbad, said, “Somewhere the present political parties have failed the solve the local issue despite being in power for so many years. This is true of the BJP, the JMM, the Congress and the AJSU; all political parties did not live up the expectation of the people and that’s the reason we have got so much of support.”
Reacting to the rise of the new outfit, JMM spokesperson Manoj Pandey said, “We accept that due his entry the party has faced loss of votes, we could not anticipate that he will do so much damage. However, I must say that this performance is temporary. Only a particular caste voted mainly students and before the Assembly election, we will short it out.”
In Giridih Lok Sabha seat JMM where Mr. Jairam Kumar Mahato contested, the JMM lost the seat by 80,880 votes.
