BJP’s surgical knife on political career of Raghubar Das signals course correction

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, October 19: Former Jharkhand Chief Minister and senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party Raghubar Das has been appointed Governor of Odisha along with his party colleague N Indra Sena Reddy. While Reddy, 73, may find excited taking the nest in the gubernatorial house in Agartala, Tripura, Das may rue that his political career has been cut short.

At an age of 68 years, Das, who has been a five-term MLA in Jharkhand, was found to have become a convenient ‘scapegoat’ following the BJP’s poll debacle in the 2019 state Assembly election. He was seen within the party as the key reason for the defeat of the BJP at the hands of the Opposition alliance led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and consisting of the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Now that the BJP takes Das out of the political canvas of Jharkhand, the saffron outfit removes the last vestige of doubt in the party ranks about the future course of the leadership. The BJP is now seen fully backing a tribal leadership in Jharkhand, and the party appears to admit that its model of projecting a contrarian leadership template has partially failed.

Das along with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his former Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis presented a contrarian leadership template of the BJP wherein the party went for an alternative to the dominant caste or class. Thus, Das was the face of the consolidation of the non-tribal vote base. He rose the forefront after the BJP’s tribal faces failed to bring political stability and drifted away in the course of their heydays. Babulal Marandi, the BJP’s original Jharkhand face, found himself at the limelight, in the shadow, and again back at the centre stage. Arjun Munda, Union Minister, was found wanting by the BJP to build a pan-state base in Jharkhand.

By not taking the CM post for Fadnavis in Maharashtra, the BJP allowed the dominant Maratha class to address its political aspiration with Eknath Shinde at the helm of the state. The fate of Khattar will be known in Haryana after the 2024 state Assembly election.

The BJP’s own Saryu Roy had defeated Das in the Assembly election from the Jamshedpur (East) seat. His own defeat had clipped his claim for the leadership of the party in Jharkhand. With the Opposition riding the social justice plank to pamper the political and social aspirations of the dominant caste groups, Das’s ouster from the political scene may also signal the BJP’s urgency to stay on the right side of the identity politics.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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