SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Dec 29: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to visit Chaibasa on January 7 to form a deft strategy in order to reclaim the two seats the BJP had lost in 2019 in Jharkhand.
The BJP had won 11 out of 14 seats in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. While one seat had been bagged by its ally -ASJU-it lost two seats-Chaibasa (Congress) and Raj Mahal (JMM).
According to sources, senior State leaders, including Babulal Marandi, Deepak Prakash and Karmveer Singh will rush to Chaibasa tomorrow to prepare for the January 7 meeting.
Sources said Shah’s visit is part of the party strategy it has formed involving three layers of leadership that would keep a vigil on not only demographic profile of each constituency but will also ensure deeper penetration of the party’s mass outreach programmes in the run-up to 2024 general elections.
The plan is essentially drawn up for 160 Lok Sabha seats across the country – with UP and Bihar occupying a special focus in the overall scheme of things.
According to sources, the first layer would comprise the central leadership which includes Amit Shah, J P Nadda and B L Santhosh. These leaders would interact with the second layer of party leaders, ostensibly from the state.
The third layer will be that of Union ministers who have been deputed for the constituencies BJP lost. These leaders will act as a bridge between the state leadership and central committee while coming up with their independent feedback about the weak assembly segments, issues in favour and against the party and the larger caste equations.
Notably, the BJP had lost the Chaibasa seat reserved for the Scheduled tribes to Geeta Koda of the Congress in 2019. The Lok Sabha seat comprises Seraikela, Chaibasa, Majhgaon, Jaganathpur, Manoharpur and Chakradharpur assembly segments.
Voters in the predominantly tribal Singhbhum constituency have not elected the sitting parliamentarian twice in any Lok Sabha election in the past three decades. Bagun Sumbrui, who died in 2018, was the only exception. Since 1996, the seat has been mostly with the Bharatiya Janata Party or Congress with Madhu Koda elected as an Independent candidate in 2009.
Similarly, the JMM had won the Raj Mahal seat, also reserved for the Scheduled tribes. The BJP had won this only twice in the past, first in 1998 and again in 2009. The Congress has won this seat six times, Jharkhand Party twice and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has bagged this seat five times since 1957.
