India: Pointers and challenges of Jharkhand and Maharashtra Assembly election outcome (plus CPIML Liberation election campaigns — A struggle for democracy and justice)
First published at CPI(ML) Liberation.
Jharkhand and Maharashtra Assembly election results present two utterly contrasting pictures. The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) desperate attempt to capture Jharkhand by riding on an unmitigated anti-Muslim hate campaign met with a spectacular defeat, but in Maharashtra the party managed to reverse the Lok Sabha results on a scale that defies any easy explanation. Alongside these two Assembly elections, there were also a good number of by-elections, including two Lok Sabha constituencies and as many as forty-eight Assembly constituencies spread over fourteen states. The Congress managed to retain the two Lok Sabha seats (the Nanded seat in Maharashtra by a very narrow margin though), but the BJP/National Democratic Alliance (NDA) managed to partially improve its strength in the Assembly by-elections. We must also note that the BJP/NDA gains in Uttar Pradesh have been won through administrative heavy-handedness and virtual disenfranchisement of large sections of Muslim voters.
In many ways the November election outcomes, and the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir results preceding it, can be seen as an early reality check since the denting of the BJP's majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-BJP establishment had drawn up elaborate plans to win this mini round and its plans worked in Haryana and Maharashtra. In both these states, the BJP success has been scripted by the strategic combination of Other Backward Class (OBC) consolidation and communal polarisation complemented by a clever local fragmentation of opposition votes and huge application of money power. The Lok Sabha elections had come as a warning bell for the BJP/NDA in Haryana ,and especially in Maharashtra, and the BJP made the fullest use of the post-parliamentary poll interregnum outsmarting and outpacing the INDIA coalition campaign.
We must also note that the BJP’s poll strategy was only an extension of the Operation Lotus campaign orchestrated by the Modi government to dethrone the Uddhav Thackeray government in 2022. The BJP could not possibly have won the Maharashtra elections in 2024 without first usurping power in June 2022 through making a complete mockery of the fundamental principles of parliamentary democracy. While there is a lot of discussion now about the impact of the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana [scheme involving welfare payment to eligible women] launched just four months before the announcement of the elections and the meticulous micromanagement done by the RSS, we cannot ignore the pivotal role that Adani played in calling the shots in Maharashtra. Also Maharashtra has never witnessed the brazen use of cash on such an astounding scale, the Election Commission of India itself admitting to confiscation of cash worth nearly 1,000 crore in these elections, nearly seven times more than the previous election figure.
But the strategy that worked for the BJP in Haryana and Maharashtra failed spectacularly in Jharkhand. The Modi government had deployed a very similar strategy in Jharkhand complete with the obstructionist role of the Governor’s office and the politics of vendetta and persecution that saw Hemant Soren being sent to jail ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The crossing over of former CM Champai Soren to the BJP pointed to a deeper conspiracy to destabilise the Hemant Soren government before the Assembly elections by engineering large scale defections. Before defeating the BJP’s hate campaign in the election, the Hemant Soren government had to withstand this destabilisation design. From the politics of vendetta and destabilisation to hate campaigns and social engineering, all the BJP’s core strategies failed or backfired and the party has had to suffer a comprehensive defeat in Jharkhand.
Champai Soren has been the only BJP candidate to win from a Scheduled Tribes (ST) reserved constituency out of the total of Jharkhand’s 28 constituencies reserved for the state’s indigenous people. The BJP also lost in a big way in Godda-Deoghar region and in parts of Palamu and North Chhotanagpur divisions. Most reassuring has been the emphatic rejection of the BJP's hate agenda in Jharkhand which revolved around a sinister attempt to pit Adivasis against Muslims by scaring the Adivasi population about losing their land, livelihood and daughters to so-called “Bangladeshi infiltrators”. With the newly formed Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha [Jharkhand Democratic Revolutionary Front, a regional political party] led by Jairam Mahato effectively replacing the BJP ally All Jharkhand Students Union, the BJP found itself virtually bereft of any alliance worth its name. In contrast, the INDIA coalition parties comprising the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM, Jharkhand Liberation Front), Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (National People's Party) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) complemented each other and put up a formidable social and political barrier to the BJP's hate-filled divisive agenda.
The unification of the erstwhile Marxist Coordination Committee with the CPI(ML) and the coming together of the legacies of Comrade AK Roy and the CPI(ML) movement played a significant role in pushing the BJP back in the Dhanbad-Bokaro region. Contesting for the first time as part of a coalition in Jharkhand Assembly elections, CPI(ML) fielded only four candidates in these elections with the JMM even forcing a “friendly contest” in one of these four seats. The loss of the party’s traditional Bagodar seat notwithstanding, the regaining of the Dhanbad district seats Nirsa and Sindri, the latter after a string of five successive defeats, has the potential of re-energising a left revival in Jharkhand and playing a bigger role in resisting corporate plunder and communal hate.
The left also picked up two seats in Maharashtra with the CPI(M) retaining the Dahanu (ST) seat in Palghar district and the Peasants and Workers Party winning the Sangole seat in Solapur district contesting outside of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA, Grand Development Front) alliance. The by-elections in West Bengal held up the prospect of a broader unity of the left with the CPI(M) supporting the CPI(ML) in the industrial area seat of Naihati in the North 24 Parganas district adjacent to Kolkata. There are no signs yet of the left recovering its lost electoral ground, but with the BJP votes declining the left must persist in the attempt to forge a broader unity and build agitations on the burning issues facing the people.
The November results have come right before the impending winter session of the Lok Sabha and just on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of India and the fourth anniversary of the historic farmers’ movement. The indictment of the Adani group by the US Department of Justice has further exposed the Adani group and the corrupt Modi-Adani nexus. The left and the INDIA coalition must take the Maharashtra poll debacle in their stride and intensify the battle to save India's democracy from the continuing fascist assault and defend the rights and interests of the people in the face of India’s deepening economic crisis.
CPI(ML) Liberation election campaigns: A struggle for democracy and justice
First published at cpiml.net.
The CPI(ML) Liberation campaign for assembly elections in Jharkhand, and by-elections in four seats — one each in Bihar, Assam, West Bengal and Rajasthan — witnessed a vibrant participation of various sections of the people centring around the issues of immense hardships to the people, countering BJP’s pro-corporate crony politics and attempts of communal polarisation through spread of hatred and lies. Party candidates raised the issues of rights and livelihoods, and in defence of democracy and constitution.
Jharkhand
In Jharkhand, CPI(ML) contested four seats: Bagodar, Nirsa, Sindri and Dhanwar. Arup Chatterjee, a former MLA from Nirsa (Dhanbad) and a member of the party Central Committee, won the Nirsa assembly constituency with 104,855 votes, defeating BJP’s Aparna Sengupta. Chandradev Mahato won in Sindri defeating BJP’s Tara Devi. He received 105,136 votes. Vinod Singh and Rajkumar Yadav from Bagodar and Dhanwar, respectively, lost. In Bagodar, CPI(ML) polled 94,884 votes and in Dhanwar 32,187. The party had held a Bagodar seat since 1990, with the exception of a narrow margin defeat in 2014. Comrade Mahendra Singh represented Bagodar until his assassination after filing his nomination for the 2005 Assembly elections, the first election following the formation of the state. Comrade Singh had been representing this seat since then. Bagodar, Nirsa and Sindri were fought as part of the INDIA alliance, while in Dhanwar, JMM also fielded a candidate.
The CPI(ML)’s election manifesto for Jharkhand was released on November 3, and focused on defeating BJP to protect the resources of the state that the Modi-BJP regime wants to destroy and exploit for the benefit of its corporate cronies. It also noted that the Modi government has consistently targeted Jharkhand, disrespecting the 2019 state mandate. The BJP has weaponised institutions like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to undermine peoples’ rights and fuelled communal tensions. Promises regarding employment and reservation policy have been stalled.
The Jharkhand manifesto also focused on generating employment opportunities in the state and called for reversing the privatisation of mining, industry, and services. The improved budget allocations for education, ensuring quality schooling at the block level and accessible transportation for students was also a major pledge in the manifesto along with increased funding for education, health, sports, and universal housing and access to ration. The burning issue of environment and fight against deforestation, destruction of rivers, land-grab policies and productive lands being converted into residential zones and ever-growing mountains of debris that are disrupting Jharkhand’s ecosystem were raised prominently. It also called for strict enforcement of the Fifth Schedule to protect Jharkhand’s ecology and indigenous heritage.
Speaking at the INDIA Alliance rally in Sindri, CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said Sindri had been the historic centre of Comrade AK Roy’s struggle, represented subsequently by stalwarts like Binod Bihari Mahato and Anand Mahato. But because of an unfortunate division in the pro-Jharkhand state political camp this legendary cradle of the Jharkhand movement has fallen in the hands of the BJP. The time has come “to hold high the red flag in this citadel of the working class movement and free Sindri from the clutches of the corporate-communal nexus.”
The Jharkhand campaign also witnessed vibrant participation in Women’s Dialogues, led by All India Progressive Women's Association (AIPWA) leader Meena Tiwari, and Youth Dialogues that were a clarion call for rights and justice. Raja Ram Singh (Karakat MP), Sudama Prasad (Arrah MP) and leaders from Bihar also took part in campaigning in Jharkhand. Party ranks actively campaigned in all assembly seats in the state in support of INDIA bloc candidates with enthusiasm.
Complaint against BJP’s fake news
CPI(ML) filed an official complaint on November 10 against the BJP in Jharkhand for spreading false propaganda in violation of the Model Code of Conduct in the Sindri Assembly constituency. In a letter addressed to Rajiv Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner, CPI(ML)’s Jharkhand State Secretary Manoj Bhakt said that the BJP has been running a disinformation campaign against CPI(ML) candidates and the party itself, including incitement to violence.
Comrade Manoj Bhakt, in the letter to the ECI demanded swift action against the BJP, urging it to remove the false videos and materials being circulated by BJP against CPI(ML). He stated that without prompt intervention, such misleading campaigns could severely impact the fairness of the electoral process.
The party thanked the people of Jharkhand for emphatically rejecting the BJP’s hate campaign and sinister agenda of inflicting Adani Raj on this resource-rich state by giving such an overwhelming mandate to the INDIA coalition.
Bihar
In the Tarari by-election, CPI(ML) leader Raju Yadav was the candidate supported by the INDIA alliance. The assembly seat became vacant after the sitting MLA Sudama Prasad won the Ara Lok Sabha seat, defeating the BJP’s RK Singh. CPIML was not able to retain this seat and Comrade Raju Yadav lost by a thin margin. He polled 68,143 votes.
During the campaign, a joint INDIA alliance rally was organised on November 11 in Tarari, which was joined by Dipankar Bhattacharya, Tejashwi Yadav and Mukesh Sahani.
A desperate BJP camp resorted to violence and intimidation of voters in Tarari at some booths. In booth no 223, village Dharmapura, feudal communal elements in support of BJP candidate attacked CPI(ML) voters with impunity. The incident was reported to local administration immediately but the ECI did not initiate any action against this brazen violation of the code of conduct to ensure free and fair polling. Lalan Yadav was seriously injured in this attack and had to be hospitalised for many days. While he was treated in the hospital, local police lodged a false case against the victim himself. Such an administrative bias is not new in Bihar. He was later set free when the Chief Judicial Magistrate refused to send him to jail and verbally scolded the police for this injustice. The police have not arrested any of the attackers so far.
WB, Rajasthan and Assam
In the West Bengal by-election, CPI(ML) fielded Debajyoti Mazumdar from the Naihati Assembly Constituency, supported by the Left Front. He received 7,593 votes. In Rajasthan, Shankar Lal Meena was the candidate for the Salumbar (ST). He received 1771 votes. In Assam, CPI(ML) leader Lakhikanta Kurmi contested Behali, securing 5093 votes.
The elections were again marked with rampant violations of model code of conduct and vicious, hate-filled false narratives by BJP leaders, as well as even more vitriolic and divisive propaganda through unofficial social media handles of the BJP-RSS establishment. On a number of occasions opposition parties made complaints to the ECI that went unheard. BJP leaders like Modi, Himanta Biswa Sarma and Adityanath spread lies in their speeches in Jharkhand but their divisive agenda was rejected as is evident in the final outcome of the elections.
The ruling establishment’s misuse of administrative machinery and huge amounts of black money is gradually corrupting the democratic nature of polity. A BJP general secretary was caught red handed distributing cash on the eve of election in Mumbai, but he was treated very softly.
The frequency of intimidation and threats to opposition parties voters’, with the help or direct involvement of police and administration, has increased to dangerous proportions. Polling day incidents in Uttar Pradesh pose a strong warning to all democracy loving people, with Muslim voters in many constituencies not allowed to exercise their voting right on filthy pretexts. Videos that went viral that day showed police harassing minority voters, including women. The ECI suspended seven police officials after one such incident was reported through a tweet by SP leader Akhilesh Yadav. But this was only an attempt at face washing, as voters in Muslim areas continued to be stopped from going to polling booths. This brazen crooked act of disenfranchising a huge minority population undoubtedly poses a direct threat to the democratic system. The bye-elections held in nine seats in Uttar Pradesh need to be investigated thoroughly, where some seats that are supposedly traditional Samajwadi Party strongholds were lost to NDA candidates because opposition voters could not exercise their democratic right to vote for the fear of life.