Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren’s oust-PM Narendra Modi plea fails to cut ice with tribals in Gujarat

RANCHI: Chief minister Hemant Soren and his party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)’s appeal to fellow tribals in Gujarat to oust BJP failed to cut ice as the saffron camp returned to power with a historic win for the seventh time on the trot.
BJP also stunned many by its performance by winning a maximum of the 27 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST). In the run-up to Gujarat polls, Soren had appealed to voters in Gujarat to dethrone BJP in the wake of the ongoing Enforcement Directorate probes against him and members of his government.
As the verdict for two assembly polls — Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh — was out on Thursday, both ruling and opposition camps in the Mahagatbandhan-ruled Jharkhand stayed silent on their losses and chose to emphatically celebrate individual wins.
While opposition BJP broke into celebrations outside the party office in the evening hailing PM Narendra Modi’s model of governance which helped the party register a historic victory, Congress, which clinched Himachal Pradesh, hailed its central leadership, specially AICC’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi for turning the tide against BJP. The JMM, however, maintained silence while Soren was busy with his Khatiyan Yatra which he began from Garhwa on Thursday.
BJP president Deepak Prakash said, “BJP’s historic victory is testimony to Modi’s ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ model of governance.” BJP’s leader of legislative party and Dhanwar MLA Babulal Marandi added, “By bringing BJP back to power, the people of Gujarat have shown the mirror to all those parties who dupe voters by promising free goodies during polls.” None of them commented on the Himachal Pradesh verdict.
Congress, too, downplayed Gujarat but was elated over the win in Himachal Pradesh as party workers played with gulal and distributed sweets. Congress’s co-working president Bandhu Tirkey, a tribal and former minister, spent a considerable time in Gujarat to consolidate the party’s prospects in reserved seats. Mahagama MLA Deepika Pandey did her part in HP.
Party spokesperson Rakesh Sinha said, “BJP’s dominance and money power did the trick in Gujarat. But in Himachal Pradesh, Congress ousted the BJP government. It’s a story of BJP’s downfall as it lost MCD polls, lost HP and almost all bypolls in UP’s Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha.”