This was the first time in recent years a court had to intervene in the process through which a political party elects its legislative party leader, since it has delayed the appointments of the state information commissioner and state human rights commission member. The post of the state information commissioner, for instance, has been lying vacant since May 2020.
Despite the Supreme Court’s directive to complete the process by 12 January, the BJP has yet to name its legislative party leader or pick a chief whip in the Assembly.
The BJP’s indecision has drawn comparisons with that of the Congress in Haryana where the party has failed to pick an LoP more than four months after the elections due to apparent infighting between Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Randeep Surjewala and Kumari Selja.
But unlike Haryana, the problem in Jharkhand is not factionalism but more the indecisiveness of the BJP high command, sources in the party told ThePrint.
“After back-to-back defeats in Jharkhand in the 2019 and 2024 assembly polls, Jharkhand is not an immediate priority of the BJP central leadership,” said a senior BJP leader who did not wish to be named. Adding, “The central leadership was occupied with the Union Budget preparation, the Parliament session, the Delhi election and the PM’s US visit.”
Also Read: Thackerays have a plan to whip up support before civic polls. It starts on Shinde’s home turf
BJP leadership in no hurry
The leadership vacuum was evident last week when the BJP skipped an all-party meeting before the start of the budget session because it hadn’t elected a leader in the House.
Though Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahato invited the party’s seniormost MLA C.P. Singh to attend the all-party meeting in the absence of a BJP leader, no BJP member was in attendance.
State BJP president Babulal Marandi has been pushing for a quick decision on the legislative party leader. On Tuesday, Marandi himself took charge by leading a protest in the Assembly, sidelining most party leaders to attack the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) government on the issue of paper leaks.
Despite Marandi’s push, BJP leaders said the party was in no hurry as it wanted to make a considered decision. “Brainstorming on Jharkhand was not held despite Babulal Marandi’s reminder to general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh about the need for a speedy decision. The BJP leadership asked him to wait as the high command wasn’t in a hurry and wanted to pick someone after thoughtful consideration,” said a second BJP leader.
Even when Marandi visited Delhi after the Assembly election results, discussions centred around the party’s organisational polls.
On Monday, when BJP general secretary Sunil Bansal held a meeting with the state unit, the primary agenda was completing the organisational polls by the end of March.
“It’s the prerogative of the central leadership, and they will choose a leader in the Assembly at the right time as they have been busy with several other things,” BJP general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Aditya Sahu told ThePrint.
BJP’s dilemma in Jharkhand
Apart from the central leadership’s preoccupation with other issues, there are multiple reasons for the delay. One BJP leader said the delay was tied to organisational polls and caste calculations. “With the Jharkhand organisational polls underway—delayed after the Assembly elections—the party has to pick a new state president by March,” the leader said.
Adding, “The party has to recalibrate its entire caste strategy after two back-to-back defeats in the Assembly polls. If the Leader of the Opposition is chosen from the tribal community, then the state president can be a non-tribal, or vice versa.” The leader noted that the current state president, Babulal Marandi, is from the tribal community.
“If the party picks Raghubar Das, who recently returned to active politics after a gubernatorial stint, as the state president—an OBC face—then a tribal leader might be chosen for the Assembly,” the BJP leader added. “The central leadership has to take a decision on both posts, not just one.”
That its decision to place stock in tribal leadership in Jharkhand hasn’t paid off like it did in Odisha or Chhattisgarh adds another layer to the party’s dilemma.
Most of the party’s prominent tribal leaders in Jharkhand lost in the Assembly polls. The BJP won only one of 28 reserved seats.
It has only two tribal leaders in the Assembly: Babulal Marandi who won from a general seat and former JMM leader Champai Soren who won from a reserved seat.
Apart from a limited talent pool among tribal leaders in the Assembly, the party is grappling with another problem. Most experienced faces of the last Assembly from Amar Bauri and Nilkanth Munda to Bhanu Pratap Shahi and Biranchi Narayan lost in the last election.
“The party has limitations in tribal leadership. If it wants to pick a younger leader from the tribal quota, then it will have to select a leader in the assembly from the OBC or ‘upper caste’ group,” said the party leader.
The BJP leader acknowledged that one of the party’s biggest challenges was to draft a five-year strategy for the next Assembly election and decide whether to continue its tribal outreach or shift focus towards the OBCs and ‘upper castes’, which have been its core vote bank traditionally.
The dilemma stems from its setbacks in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
When the BJP brought Babulal Marandi back into the party and made him the Leader of the Opposition and the state party president later, it expected him to dethrone the JMM’s Hemant Soren. But party leaders said Marandi didn’t quite live up to their expectations.
Not only did the BJP fail to unseat Soren but its performance in the Lok Sabha polls wasn’t impressive either. Former chief minister Arjun Munda, another key tribal face, lost in the Lok Sabha elections. “The BJP could not win back the lost tribal constituency against Hemant Soren. The party lost the Kurmi vote and many sections of the traditional OBC vote too. Now the party is perplexed whether it should continue to woo tribals or reach out to OBCs and ‘upper castes’, the BJP’s traditional vote bank,” said the party leader.
Experienced face for Assembly
According to a former state unit chief, the party has an opportunity to experiment with new leadership in the state as it gears up to take on the JMM on the ground over the next five years. “But another thought in the party is that if we let go of the tribal segment, it may hurt us in other states. That is why the party is taking time to pick names for both state president and legislature party leader,” said the leader.
Pradeep Verma, a BJP Rajya Sabha MP and in-charge of organisational polls, told ThePrint that although the selection of both posts is not linked, the central leadership will consider the “caste arithmetic”.
“In the assembly, the party needs an experienced face who can corner the government on the floor and guide our MLAs, while in the organisation, the party needs a streetfighter for the next few years to make inroads into newer untouched areas,” Verma said.
Historically, the BJP in Jharkhand has rotated the posts of state president and legislature party leader between tribals and non-tribals.
In 2009, Das, who is from the OBC community, was state president and Arjun Munda, a tribal, was leader of the legislative party. An exception was made in 2014 when both posts were given to non-tribals. Ahead of the 2019 Assembly election, the BJP was back to dividing the two posts within the two groups. Laxman Gilua, a tribal, was made state president while Das was chief minister and legislature party leader.
After its defeat in the 2019 elections, an alarmed BJP leadership decided to bring back Marandi, and he was made legislative party leader while Deepak Prakash from the non-tribal group was made state president. The party in July 2023 picked Marandi as state president and Amar Bauri was made leader of the the Opposition.
BJP turning into the Congress
The BJP’s indecision isn’t limited to Jharkhand. In Karnataka, the party high command took six months after its 2023 election defeat to appoint Vokkaliga leader R. Ashoka as Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.
With the Lingayat and Vokkliga factions vying for the post, it took the BJP many months to pacify both sides. Eventually, B.Y. Vijayendra, the son of former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa, was named the state party president, while Ashoka was chosen as the opposition leader.
In contrast, during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s tenure as party president, the BJP was quick to appoint opposition leaders after election losses in three states.
In 2018, Gulab Chand Kataria in Rajasthan, Gopal Bhargava in Madhya Pradesh and Dharamlal Kaushik in Chhattisgarh were picked within a month of the Assembly election.
The party also took two years to take a decision on removing Biren Singh as Manipur chief minister. Similarly, it took almost a year to send disciplinary notices to Kirodi Lal Meena in Rajasthan, Basangouda Patil Yatnal in Karnataka and Anil Vij in Haryana for speaking out against the party leadership in their states.
The party has yet to decide whether Meena’s resignation will be accepted or not.
“Sometimes not taking a decision is also a decision as in the case of Manipur. But in the case of those states where the BJP lost, the party waited for temperatures to cool down and for warring factions to lose steam. The party then took a decision at the right time,” said another senior BJP leader who did not wish to be named. “Since BJP is like a big ship, several leaders keep fighting always. But the party resolves them in a democratic way.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also Read: Punjab Oppn sees Kejriwal clearing path to Rajya Sabha as AAP fields MP Sanjeev Arora in bypoll
