The Loktantra Bachao Abhiyan has claimed that voters in the Assembly seats in Jharkhand that went to polls in the first phase on November 13 have voted for public issues rather than politics of hate.

Members of the Abhiyan told reporters in Dumka that based on their interaction with the voters in the 43 seats, people have largely voted on public issues such as the conservation of water, forest, land, Mainya Samman Yojana, social security pension, waiver of agricultural loan and electricity bill instead of communal hatred.

“The BJP is fighting the election not on the rights of the tribals and the natives, but in the name of division and religion. They are silent on the basic issues of the tribals-natives like CNT-SPT (land tenancy law), Sarna dharma code (separate religion code for tribals demanded in the Census), Khatian (land survey) based local policy, rights to water, forest, land and minimum support price for farmers but only stressing on Bangladeshi infiltrators for religious polarisation,” said a statement by the Abhiyan members.

“The hollowness of the BJP’s communal agenda in stressing Bangladeshi infiltration in Santhal Pargana has also been exposed with the Narendra Modi government reply in the high court that no involvement of Bangladeshi infiltrators has been found in the land disputes at Santhal Pargana and that they were local disputes. Even the team formed by the Election Commission (which also had BJP members) had not found anything in its investigation. In Parliament too, the Modi government says that it does not have any data on Bangladeshi infiltrators,” the statement adds.

The organisation said the struggle for water, forest and land formed the basis of the fight for Jharkhand statehood. “While the JMM has promised to implement the 1932 Khatian-based local policy and cancel the land bank in its manifesto, the BJP is silent on such issues. The BJP’s anti-tribal politics is also exposed by the fact that there is no mention of Sarna Code in its manifesto. While on one hand, the JMM and the INDIA bloc is talking about implementing Sarna Code, BJP state president Babulal Marandi is talking about Sarna-Sanatan unity. The BJP and the RSS’s communal game of dividing tribals into Sarna-Christian has been exposed,” the statement adds.

The statement pointed out that the Centre had put on hold Jharkhand’s proposal to include Khatian-based locality policy and Sarna code in the 9th Schedule of the Constitution and increasing the reservation for backward classes to 27 per cent.

The second phase of Jharkhand election is scheduled on November 20.