New Delhi: The Opposition alliance of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Congress and the RJD had a resounding victory with 47 seats in Jharkhand as counting of votes concluded on Monday. The alliance is all set to form the next government displacing the Bharatiya Janata Party which ruled the state for the last 5 years.
After conceding the defeat, incumbent Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das resigned from his post. He handed over his resignation to Governor Draupadi Murmu at Raj Bhavan on Monday evening.
Jharkhand is the fifth state the BJP has lost within a year. Last year, the party lost Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the Congress. This year, after its victory in the Lok Sabha election, Maharashtra too slipped out of its grasp. BJP now governs a mere 35 per cent of the country's landmass in comparison to over 71 per cent during its peak in 2017 when it was in power in the entire Hindi-speaking heartland.
The victory has come as a moral booster for opposition unity and for the Congress, which is seeking to become relevant again in Indian politics after suffering two successive defeats in general elections.
Meanwhile, JMM emerged as the single largest party with 30 seats in its pocket, while BJP could manage to win only 25 seats. In the last assembly elections, the BJP had bagged 37 seats. Its ally All Jharkhand Students' Union (AJSU) had won 5 seats. The two parties contested these elections separately after they could not agree on the sharing of seats.
The JMM, the Congress, and the RJD which could stitch a pre-poll alliance managed to improve its tally in the elections. In the last elections, the JMM had bagged 19 seats and the Congress managed 6. The RJD had failed to open its account in the last elections.
As the alliance comfortably pegged itself above the majority mark in the 81-member assembly, Chief Ministerial candidate Hemant Soren said that time has finally come to fulfil people's wishes.
"I want to thank people of Jharkhand for the mandate in favour of JMM. It is a joyous day for the people of the state and finally, the time has come to fulfil all your demands," Soren said in his media address.
With the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance set to form the government in Jharkhand, several opposition parties on Monday linked the mandate to the Citizenship Amendment Act and the NRC, saying people have demolished "arrogance" of the BJP, which attributed its defeat to local issues and "internal strife" in the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Soren for the victory and extended his best wishes to the alliance while BJP president Amit Shah said his party respects the mandate of voters and also expressed his gratitude to the people of Jharkhand for giving the BJP a chance to govern the state for five years.