They call him Tiger. The girls think he is Shah Rukh Khan. Whatever be it, Jairam Mahato has many in Jharkhand in thrall.
If Tiger is taking on a coal colossus in one constituency, in another he has challenged “Tigerda’s wife”.
As a wave of nativist politics appears to have upset the calculations of the entrenched INDIA and NDA blocs in the Jharkhand Assembly polls, “Tiger” Jairam Mahato has undoubtedly left deep pugmarks in his trail. Tiger’s Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM), which is making its debut in the November 20 Assembly elections, draws its support from the sentiment that led to the carving out of the state from Bihar — employment aspirations of the sons of the soil and a greater stake for its indigenous people in its resources.
“When Jairam’s government comes, mark my words, one by one he will implement all 50 points of his manifesto,” Suraj Mahato, a fresh history graduate from Bokaro’s Prananath College, told TheTelegraph.
Suraj appeared for the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission Combined Graduate Level exam and the recruitment test for police constables this year. The first exam is mired in a controversy over question papers being leaked, while the latter was stalled after several candidates died of heatstroke during the physical test.
“Read the names on the staff quarters of coal, electricity and steel companies in Bokaro. You will mostly find outsiders. The Hemant Soren government has delayed recruitment even for state government jobs. The JMM and the BJP can’t help us, only Tiger can,” he told this newspaper.
Jairam shot to prominence after leading protests against the introduction of Bhojpuri and Magahi in the Jharkhand government’s district-level recruitment exams in Bokaro and Dhanbad in 2021. He formed the JLKM this year. Its candidates, contesting as Independents, came third in the Giridih, Ranchi and Hazaribagh constituencies in the Lok Sabha polls with 29-year-old Jairam getting 27.46 per cent of the votes in Giridih.
In the Assembly elections, the JLKM has fielded candidates in 71 of Jharkhand’s 81 seats, spurred by his own gains in the parliamentary polls earlier this year. The JLKM’s base is the OBC Kudmi Mahato community in the Chotanagpur region. Jairam is contesting from the adjacent constituencies of Dumri in Giridih district and Bermo in Bokaro district.
A JMM supporter in a toy bear costume at a bike rally in Dumri. Picture by Pheroze L Vincent
“These people (like Jairam) appear only during elections. They have no interest in the mines. In Bermo it is the BJP or the Congress as we have our trade unions. This boy just has some support in the Mahato-dominated villages,” said Umesh Kumar Pandey, a leader of the RSS-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh in the Amlo mines of Bermo.
Bermo’s incumbent Congress MLA Kumar Jaimangal is the president of the Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sangh. On Monday, its members in Amlo Basti were engaged in a heated discussion over an altercation between Congress and JLKM supporters the previous day.
“The Congress takes us for granted as we have always been loyal to the union. And if you are Muslim, the party assumes you have no choice but to vote for it. The land beneath us is sinking because of the coal fires. During the daily blasting in the mines, household items often fall and break. For years we have waited for resettlement,” a Muslim miner told this newspaper.
Another miner weighed in: “The MLA and his father (late union leader Rajendra Prasad Singh) will throw crumbs at us — like water pumps or a clubhouse. The BJP is the same. Why not give Tiger a chance? We are all moolvasis (natives) who lost land to the mines.”
The miners did not wish to be named or photographed, saying they did not want to antagonise union leaders. The JLKM promises 90 per cent reservation in government jobs for those who can trace their descent to those listed in the 1932 land settlement records.
The moniker “Tiger” is used by political strongmen in Jharkhand. Former chief minister Champai Soren is called “Jharkhand Tiger”; late Dumri MLA Jagarnath Mahato — who ran kangaroo courts — is referred to as “Tigerda”.
“Tigerda was the best MLA. His wife (incumbent JMM MLA Bebi Devi) knows nothing, her son Raju runs the show. He is a good boy. But I worry for my daughters. The government residential school they study in is good, but the principal makes them clean the toilets,” Manoj Mandal, a jhalmuri seller in Dumri, said.
He added: “Even our educated youth don’t get jobs. We are all Tiger Jairam’s deewana (smitten by him) because he speaks for the future of our kids.”
Kokil Sao, who runs a woodwork shop in Dumri’s Isri Bazar, has the same concerns for his daughter. He is also annoyed at the absence of irrigation because of which he has had low yield from his rice crop for the past two years because of insufficient and erratic rain. He said he is backing BJP-ally Ajsu in the seat.
“You can’t wish away the outsiders, like Jairam wants. But there should be some reservation for natives. Both the JMM and the BJP are only focussing on doles rather than infrastructure that will create jobs,” he said.
Ajsu, headed by Sudesh Mahto, is seen as the main Mahato party in Jharkhand atthe moment.
As JMM and JLKM motorcycle rallies criss-crossed each other in Dumri’s Nawadih, tailor Moin Ansari claimed that the participants of the latter had come for free — implying that the JMM’s bikers were funded by the party.
Ansari was effusive in his praise for Jairam. “The youths are crazy about him. Girls look at him like he is Shah Rukh Khan. I still think the JMM will win because Hemant Soren has launched so many welfare schemes…. But at a time when it is fashionable tosay bad things about Muslims, Jairam has not. The JMM will have to work doubly hard to prove that it is indeed the best party for Jharkhandis,” he said.
Jharkhand votes today
