With his tribal playbook, can Himanta Biswa Sarma do a Chhattisgarh in Jharkhand?

As the BJP ramps up its preparations for the Jharkhand assembly election scheduled for November 13 and 20, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has emerged as a key figure in the party’s strategy, reprising a method he successfully employed in Chhattisgarh last year. Both states have witnessed Sarma’s deft approach to consolidating tribal votes around Hindu identity by deploying tactics designed to instil fear of an “external threat”. In Chhattisgarh, where tribals comprise 31 per cent of the electorate, Sarma’s hardline rhetoric focused on alleged mass conversions to Christianity posing a threat to tribal identity as well as to Sanatan Dharma and Hindu culture. In Jharkhand, with its 26 per cent tribal population, his narrative has shifted to “demographic changes” caused by an alleged influx of illegal Muslim settlers from Bangladesh.
Sarma’s narrative playing on tribal pride helped the BJP secure an unexpected victory in Chhattisgarh’s tribal-dominated regions and catapulted him to the forefront of the party’s electioneering efforts in other tribal regions, too, where he has been cast as a mascot for Hindutva-driven campaigns. The same strategy is now in action in the Jharkhand campaign that Sarma is overseeing alongside former Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The Assam chief minister has often raised alarm over Bangladeshis and Rohingyas allegedly displacing local tribal populations and seizing land, particularly in the Santhal Pargana region. “If this trend continues, then the day is not far when infiltrators will sit in the assembly,” Sarma warned in one of his rallies. This tactic mirrors his approach in Chhattisgarh, where he invoked the spectre of outsiders undermining tribal and Hindu identity.
Sarma has even claimed that a National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented in Jharkhand to identify and deport those not listed, primarily targeting Bangladeshis. He referenced Assam’s experience, where 14 lakh people were identified as illegal immigrants during an NRC process and noted that they have requested the Supreme Court to allow a second revision to increase this number.
While Sarma’s speeches in Jharkhand are replete with accusations that the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and its allies are silent on the issue of “infiltration” for the sake of “appeasement politics”, the government led by CM Hemant Soren wrote to the Election Commission of India accusing Sarma and Chouhan, now Union agriculture minister, of spreading hatred between communities and demoralising state bureaucrats. Soren also wrote to Sarma requesting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for Assam’s tea tribes, a move seen as a counter to the BJP’s campaign in Jharkhand. By highlighting this issue, Soren sought to challenge Sarma on his home turf and shift the focus from Jharkhand’s demographic changes. The tea tribes, categorised as Other Backward Classes, face significant challenges such as poor wages and lack of educational opportunities.
Despite the criticism, Sarma’s divisive rhetoric has placed him firmly in the BJP’s top tier of election strategists. His rise as the BJP’s Hindutva poster boy, especially in tribal regions, is a testament to his ability to blend local issues with the larger Hindutva narrative. As Jharkhand gears up for a heated election battle, the tribal votes are crucial for any party that seeks to gain power in Jharkhand. Having lost all five ST-reserved seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP now aims to bag at least 10 of the 28 ST-reserved seats in the upcoming assembly polls. Last time it won only two. All eyes are on whether Sarma’s Chhattisgarh strategy will yield similar success for the BJP in the similarly mineral-rich and tribal-dominated state.
Subscribe to India Today Magazine