Treading cautiously ahead of the Jharkhand Assembly elections 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday appointed political stalwarts Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as election in charge for Jharkhand.
Chauhan ensured all Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha seats to BJP in 2024 general elections, while Himanta is considered a hardliner, who can do magic with his speeches and personal touch.
The party has retained Laxmikant Vajpayee as Jharkhand BJP in-charge.
Notably, after a resounding victory in 2014 Assembly elections, when BJP won 47 seats on its own in the 81 member Assembly, the party failed to make a mark in 2019 Assembly polls.
In 2019 BJP could hardly manage to get 25 seats. And later, when Babulal Marandi merged his Jharkhand Vikas Morcha with the BJP the tally became 26.
Apart from the 2014 emphatic win, when Raghubar Das made his government and ruled for five complete years, the BJP has not been able to contain the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the State. The JMM has emerged as a decisive factor in almost all elections in the 24 years’ history of Jharkhand.
With the appointment of Chauhan and Sarma it is believed that the party is going to form a new strategy this time to win seats in the tribal dominated constituencies. In the 2019 polls the party could win only two seats out of 28 reserved ST seats and this time party’s focus would be to regain the tribal turf.
Meanwhile, State BJP leaders including president Babulal Marandi, Opposition Leader Amar Bauri have welcomed appointment of the election in-charges in the State. Marandi said that the BJP will make a double-engine government in Jharkhand under the guidance of Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Himanta Biswa Sarma.
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