JDU, the BJP ally in the Centre and Bihar, on Thursday rubbed salt on the wounds of the BJP after its electoral drubbing in Jharkhand, by saying that installing a non-tribal as the chief minister of the state proved costly for the saffron party.
JDU national general secretary K.C. Tyagi told The Telegraph over phone from Delhi on Thursday that Jharkhand was created for tribals. “The BJP’s decision to have a non-tribal CM in the state could not be digested by tribals who voted against the party in this election,” Tyagi said.
Out of the 28 Assembly seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes in Jharkhand, the BJP could win just two in the just concluded Assembly elections, surprisingly from strongholds of the pathalgadi movement, Khunti and Torpa constituencies.
Das also lost for the first time in 25 years from his pocketborough Jamshedpur East to his own former cabinet minister-turned-rebel Saryu Roy.
The JDU leader said that an attempt to change the provisions of the age-old land tenancy acts — CNT and SPT — also sent a wrong message to tribals. “They started seeing the Raghubar Das government as one that wanted to give tribal land to corporate houses,” Tyagi said.
Tyagi also raised a question on the functioning style of the outgoing CM Raghubar Das and observed that Das failed to establish proper coordination in the workings of his government and become a leader who “could take everyone along with him”.
The BJP did not take kindly to these remarks. Reacting sharply, BJP general secretary Deepak Prakash said those raising questions of tribal and non-tribal with respect to the outgoing CM (Das) did not know ground realities.
“Also, the Raghubar Das government has set such milestones of development that their importance will be realised in the times to come,” Prakash said. “Also, critics are forgetting that Jharkhand has a tribal lady governor (Droupadi Murmu) and the Das government had a tribal Speaker (Dinesh Oraon). The BJP also made a tribal leader from Jharkhand (Arjun Munda) a minister in the Centre in addition to giving the Rajya Sabha seat to a tribal (Sameer Oraon).”
