The BJP is likely to give the leader of Opposition post to a tribal person, sources in the party said on Friday.

Khunti MLA Nilkanth Singh Munda, who was rural development minister in the outgoing Raghubar Das government, is likely to be the party choice for the post.

“Having a tribal face in the role of leader of Opposition is part of the party’s strategy to establish a balance between tribals and non-tribals of the state. Nilkanth Singh Munda, who is a senior leader of the party, is likely to be the party’s choice for the post of leader of Opposition,” a senior BJP functionary, who preferred anonymity for obvious reasons, said.

The move comes against the backdrop of the BJP, with a non-tribal as the CM face, winning just two of the 28 seats in Jharkhand reserved for Scheduled Tribes. Analysts have said that the disenchantment of tribal voters was a major reason for the BJP’s defeat.

However, the senior BJP functionary who spoke to The Telegraph on Friday said that a preliminary analysis of the outcome had suggested that what hurt the party more was the division of Sadan voters.

The non-tribal natives of Jharkhand are called Sadan, and according to estimates they constitute around 56 per cent of the state’s population while tribals make up around 26 per cent.

“Our past analysis had showed that even in the Assembly seats reserved for STs our candidates won owing to support of majority of Sadan voters but this time it appears that Sadan votes got divided leading to poor performance,” said the BJP leader.

He admitted that the Opposition’s tactic of projecting Raghubar Das as an outsider from Chhattisgarh “somehow worked” and said the BJP could not project local Sadan leaders which could have consolidated the votes of this group.

Another senior BJP leader said that the central leadership of the party was going to analyse the electoral debacle under a microscope.

“Raghubar Das went to Delhi on Friday as part of this exercise and after meeting him, our central leadership would have meetings with other leaders also to have a concrete reason behind the defeat,” said the leader.

He also pointed out that the BJP Jharkhand president could be someone from the Sadan group so that the party could use this face in future for consolidating the non-tribal voters.

When The Telegraph pointed out that Sadan voters also include Muslims who constitute around 11 per cent of the state’s population, the BJP leader candidly accepted that the party accepts that very few Muslims could be expected to support the BJP.