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The tribal bastions of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have overwhelmingly turned towards the BJP. The Congress faced a humiliating defeat in Chhattisgarh, where it had won a landslide victory in the Assembly elections just about six months ago. In neighbouring Jharkhand, the grand alliance put together by the Congress with the mainly tribal outfits seemed helpless in the face of a determined campaign led by the BJP.
In Chhattisgarh, BJP President Amit Shah’s audacious move to drop all the 11 sitting MPs and field new faces seems to have paid off, with the party leading in as many as 10 of the 11 seats. Till late afternoon, the Congress was ahead only in the predominantly tribal seat of Bastar.
The Congress had won a handsome victory in Chhattisgarh last November, cornering 68 of the 90 seats in the Assembly with a 43.2 per cent vote share — its highest in the last four Assembly polls. The BJP could win only 15 seats, with a number of ministers in the then Chief Minister Raman Singh’s Cabinet losing to the Congress.
Big win in Chhattisgarh
In the trends available till late afternoon, the BJP’s Vijay Baghel was ahead by 1,48,968 votes in Durg, Guharam Ajgale by 46,667 votes in Janjgir, Mohan Mandavi by 11,067 votes in Kanker, Jyotinand Dubey by 16,304 votes in Korba, Gomti Sai by 60,264 votes in Raigarh, Santosh Pandey by 75,904 votes in Rajnandgaon, Sunil Soni by 1,18,719 votes in Raipur and Renuka Singh by 98,894 votes in Sarguja.
The Congress was ahead in just two seats — in Naxal-hit Bastar, its Deepak Baij was ahead by 14,759 votes, and in Mahasamund, Dhanendra Sahu was ahead by 2,609 votes.
The BJP’s vote share was hovering around 49.1 per cent while that of the Congress trailed with 41.03 per cent at the end of five rounds. There were still 11 more rounds to be counted.
Sizeable lead in Jharkhand
In the 14 seats of Jharkhand, the combined strength of the Congress with former CM Shibu Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), another former CM Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) and the RJD failed to match up to the BJP’s alliance with the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) in a 13-1 seat-sharing formula. The BJP was ahead in 10 of the total 14 seats in Jharkhand, its tally going down by only two seats as compared to its 2014 sweep of 12 seats in the tribal State.
Interestingly, all the former CMs — Arjun Munda from Khunti, Soren from Dumka and Babulal Marandi from Kodarma — were trailing till late afternoon.
The Congress’s star candidate, Kirti Azad, was lagging the BJP’s Pashupati Nath Singh in Dhanbad by 1,13,790 votes while the BJP’s Nishikant Dubey was set to make a hat-trick win from Godda. Another BJP star, Jayant Sinha, was leading by 1,16,819 votes.
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