The Election Commission of India (ECI) is expected to announce the dates for the Assembly polls in Jharkhand and Maharashtra in the coming week, with the polling process commencing by the second or third week of November.
The term of the current 288-member Maharashtra assembly is set to expire on November 26, and ideally, the elections must be completed before this date.
Meanwhile, the term of the 81-member Jharkhand assembly ends on January 5 next year. Traditionally, Jharkhand's Assembly polls are held and conclude in December, but this time, the elections are expected to be held slightly earlier.
It remains unclear how many phases the polling will be conducted in for both states, given the presence of left-wing extremists.
In 2019, the ECI conducted the Jharkhand state polls in five phases, whereas Maharashtra’s polls were conducted in a single phase.
The ECI’s plan to hold elections in the second or third week of November seems well thought out, considering two significant festivals — Diwali and Chhath — are widely celebrated in Jharkhand and Bihar.
Although Chhath is not a major festival in Maharashtra, the state has a substantial population from Bihar and Jharkhand, and this festive season often witnesses a large reverse migration of these communities.
Diwali and Chhath festivities last from October 31 to November 8, giving voters from migrant communities sufficient time to return home and participate in the elections during the second and third weeks of November.
In Maharashtra, the BJP-led Shiv Sena-NCP Mahayuti alliance is trying to retain power, while in Jharkhand, Chief Minister Hemant Soren, leading the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance, is making every effort to keep the BJP-AJSU Party alliance out of power.
The BJP is buoyed by its remarkable electoral victory in the Haryana assembly polls, where it is poised to form the government for the third consecutive term.
However, the party faced a setback in the recent parliamentary elections, securing only 240 seats, well below the expectations of its top leadership.
“No one expected Haryana to be ours, but we proved everyone wrong. The result in Haryana has reinvigorated the BJP, and we are ready to make a mark in Jharkhand and Maharashtra as well,” a senior BJP leader said.
For the Jharkhand elections, the central BJP leadership has deputed former Chief Minister and current Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the party's firebrand Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to lead the charge.
Until a few weeks ago, the UPA alliance in Jharkhand appeared dominant under Hemant Soren’s leadership. Soren had successfully built a formidable Tribal-Muslim social block, which the BJP found difficult to challenge or penetrate.
Furthermore, the BJP’s organisational weaknesses in Jharkhand had given Soren a free hand to solidify his influence across the state.
However, the combined efforts of Chauhan and Sarma have shifted the political narrative in Jharkhand. The BJP has adopted a more aggressive stance, launching a series of political campaigns highlighting the failures of the Soren government, particularly its inability to provide jobs for the youth.
The party has promised a range of social welfare schemes for women, including the 'Gogo Didi Yojana', which aims to reach 2.5 million women in the state, putting pressure on Soren to recalibrate his strategy.
While Soren continues to project himself as the unquestioned leader of the state's tribal population and its youth, the BJP has mounted a strong campaign accusing him of deceiving young people with false job promises and compromising tribal identity for vote-bank politics. The party has also accused Soren of enabling “land jihad” and “love jihad” against the tribals of the Santal Pargana region.
Vijay Deo Jha
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