SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Jan 19: By-elections for the Ramgarh assembly seat will be a litmus test for both the JMM-Congress combine and the NDA as well.
While the Congress will try to retain the seat, the NDA hopes to reverse the trend of facing defeat in bypolls before the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Jharkhand. The BJP had tasted defeat in all the four bypolls in Dumka, Bermo, Madhupur and Mandar held after 2019.
The by-polls, scheduled to be held on February 27, were necessitated after Congress legislator Mamta Devi was disqualified on December 26 following her conviction, and was awarded five years imprisonment in a 2016 rioting and attempt-to murder case.
This time, besides the political issues, the unfulfilled promise for offering five lakh jobs to the unemployed youth every year and embarrassment to the government over the job policy will now haunt the ruling combine.
Notably, Hemant Soren, flying high on the 1932 domicile policy and 77 reservation in government jobs, faced a jolt after the Jharkhand High Court rejected his government’s job policy which had made schooling from Jharkhand mandatory for general candidates for a job in the State.
So far, the Jharkhand government has not challenged the high court order in the Supreme Court and also not opened its mind on the new job policy, which it wants to frame before the Budget session.
Given the short timeframe before he faces the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, it is unlikely that Soren will afford to go to the Apex court as it will take at least six months to decide the issue. If the Supreme Court upholds his policy, it will be well and good, but if it goes by the high court order, it will have to amend all the appointment rules of different departments, which will take another six months.
Indications are that the Hemant government would not make any fresh experiment and enact a legally correct policy in conformity with the high court order and pave the way for fulfilling his promise for jobs. Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh held a meeting in this regard a few days back and asked the secretaries to be ready with the amended appointment rules in conformity with the new job policy.
But it may not be politically correct for Hemant Soren and the JMM-Congress combine. It is possible that the Sadans and tribals may no longer believe him and will call his bluff. For, a majority of the 3.34 lakh electorates in Ramgarh constituency comprises members of the Kurmi community, also described as Sadans (natives). It was to woo Sadans that Hemant Soren resorted to a discriminatory job policy.
There was no such controversy over the job policy in earlier by-elections which were fought on local factors and acceptability of the candidates.
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Then there is another development in the political scenario now.
The victory of Mamta Devi by a handsome margin of 28,178 votes was attributed to the chasm between the BJP and AJSU. Both had fought separately and logged 71,226 and 31,874 votes respectively. Mamta had bagged 99,944 votes.
Political watches say that Mamta, though disqualified following conviction by the court, still holds sympathy among the voters. They point out that she has not been convicted in a corruption case. “She paid the price for fighting for the people of her constituency and the people rewarded her in the last elections. So, if the Congress chooses her husband Balram Mahto to contest, it can throw a challenge to the AJSU’s proposed candidate Sunita Chaudhary, wife of Giridih MP Chandra Prakash Chaudhary. Shahzada Anwar, who had received over 45,000 votes in 2014, is also in the race for a Congress ticket.
Both Mamta and Sunita belong to Kurmi caste, which has a sizable population followed by Muslims in Ramgarh.
Besides the split in the NDA votes, the electorates were also angry with Chandra Prakash Chaudhary as well as the then Chief Minister Raghubar Das, Three years after, the anti-incumbency factor had vanished putting the NDA candidate in an advantageous position.
“So, the Ramgarh bypoll unlike previous byelections will be a real litmus test for Chief Minister Hemant Soren,” concluded a political watcher.