Why the BJP lost Jharkhand: tribal distrust, tenancy law changes and non-tribal faces

A column written after the recent Jharkhand assembly election argued that the result shows the Bharatiya Janata Party losing its hold over tribal voters, a trend the writer said was also visible in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, where the party failed to keep its tribal base together.

The tribal vote and the Sangh Parivar

The column noted that tribal communities make up roughly 8.6 per cent of India’s population but are far from a single bloc. They are split into many groups, sub-groups, clans and kula, and are spread across the country from Dang to Tripura. Their political loyalties are divided among several parties, and in most places they have not yet built an independent tribal politics of their own.

Missionary, Gandhian, leftist and Sangh Parivar groups all work among tribals through sewa projects. According to the writer, the Sangh Parivar’s education, health and cultural programmes had helped build BJP support among tribals, which showed in elections in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tripura and some northeastern states. Tribal populations in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and the Northeast, the column said, have developed active political communities, in some cases rooted in tribal identity.

What the column blamed

• Non-tribal faces: the party projected non-tribal leaders, such as Chief Minister Raghubar Das, in tribal-dominated areas, which bred distrust.
• Pathalgadi: the Das government’s response to the Pathalgadi movement, launched by tribals to defend their “Jal, Jangal, Jamin”, including sedition cases in some affected areas, made the party look anti-tribal, the writer argued.
• Tenancy laws: the government’s bid to amend the Santhal Pargana and Chotanagpur tenancy laws, which protect tribal land rights, deepened suspicion.
• Local issues: the Opposition used this distrust in its campaign, along with unemployment and young people leaving the state for work.

The column said the party lost several key seats in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. It concluded that the BJP must rebuild trust with tribal communities and turn RSS social projects into initiatives with wider political weight, in Jharkhand as well as in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

What happened next

In the 2019 Jharkhand election the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha won 30 seats, the BJP 25 and the Congress 16, and Hemant Soren became Chief Minister.

See also: Elections in India

Originally published on 26 December 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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