Jharkhand polls: Soren brothers fight for ‘Abua Sarkar’ to carry Guruji’s legacy

DUMKA: As one takes the sloping village road, leaving behind the asphalt Dumka-Sahibganj road, the smell of Handia (a traditional beer made from fermented rice) filled the air at Harwadih village in Barhait.
Septuagenarian Betiya Besra was seated under the shade of a tree to sell the drink to locals, which she had stored in two buckets covered with a red cloth. Two customers, seated in front of her, were already sipping the drink from mugs.
“Here I think the JMM is going to win hands down. There is no alternative to Shibu Soren and his party. His son Hemant Soren is contesting from here. The BJP stands no chance in this area,” she said as she poured the drink to refill the mug of one of the men.
The Barhait assembly constituency is set for a high-stake battle on November 20, when Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and chief minister Hemant Soren takes on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Gamliyel Hembrom, seeking a third term. He had won in 2014 and 2019 with a margin of around 25,000 votes on both occasions.
Reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST), this seat in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj district in the heart of Santhal Pargana, has been an invincible fortress of the JMM, with the ruling party winning all the five polls held in this seat.
“Vote for JMM. Only then would we be able to form the Abua Sarkar. The BJP is going all out to turn the tables in their favour. They have stooped to such levels that they even sent me to jail. But today again I am blocking their oath like a mountain,” Soren said in Santhali language while addressing a public rally at Gando in Dumka district, around 90 km south of Barhait.
The chief minister’s brother and JMM patriarch Shibu Soren’s youngest son Basant Soren is contesting from Dumka assembly in Dumka district for a second term.
‘Abua’ means ‘our’ in the tribal language. During the Ulgulan movement, tribal hero Birsa Munda had proclaimed “Diku Raj Tuntu Jana – Abua Raj Ete Jana” (The outsiders’ rule has ended. Our rule has begun). The word enjoys an important position in Jharkhand politics so much so that the Hemant Soren government has even named some schemes with the prefix Abua.
Hemant Soren had first unsuccessfully contested the assembly election in 2004 from Dumka. Thereafter he won the seat in 2009. He became the chief minister for the first time in 2013. Under his leadership the JMM won 19 seats in 2014 and 30 in 2019.
Even though 47-year-old Basant had campaigned for his brother Hemant Soren, when the latter had contested from Dumka in the state’s first assembly polls in 2005, Basant had his first taste of electoral politics in 2016 when he unsuccessfully contested the Rajya Sabha polls.
A minister in the JMM government, Basant was inducted into the cabinet in 2020 by the then JMM chief minister Champai Soren after he won the by-poll in Dumka seat. Hemant Soren, who had won both from Dumka and Barhait seat in 2019 assembly polls, vacated Dumka.
In the crucial battle for ‘Abua Sarkar’ in Jharkhand, the two Soren brothers are the JMM’s top two faces on whom the party is banking upon to retain its dominance over the Santhal Pargana, which comprises 18 seats.
“The two Soren brothers are the two top contestants in this region. They have good tribal connections and can speak in fluent Santhali, which is an added advantage in this region. They can carry the legacy of Guruji (Shibu Soren),” said Birsa Mardi, a resident of Gando.
Since the state was formed over two decades ago, Jharkhand has seen at least 13 chief ministers and President’s rule on three occasions. Former BJP CM Raghubar Das was the only one to have completed a full term. No party has been re-elected for a second consecutive term though.
“We haven’t completed the full five-year term. This is the first time that elections are being held before the full tenure ends,” said Hemant Soren at the Gando rally even as hundreds of people were hearing him attentively at the Lal Dangal ground.
Santhal Pargana, with its six districts – Sahibganj, Pakur, Dumka, Jamtara, Deoghar and Godda – is considered JMM’s bastion. Seven out of the 18 seats in this region are reserved for STs and one for SCs. While Sahibganj has a 26% tribal population, Dumka district has a tribal population of around 43%. In 2019 the JMM won nine seats, and the Congress won four seats. The BJP could only manage four.
With Shibu Soren losing the Lok Sabha polls from Dumka in 2019 to BJP’s Sunil Soren, it has fallen on the Soren brothers to carry forward the legacy of their father. Durga Soren, Shibu Soren’s eldest son died in 2009, and his wife Sita Soren sided with the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“One can never dislodge Guruji. But after Shibu Soren, people now know Hemant Soren. If someone in the party could carry Guru ji’s torch, it would be Hemant Soren. He has a very good connection with the tribal community. Basant is rather new and has to prove his mettle,” said Sunil Besra, a tea stall owner at Sonajuri in Sahibganj.
But even Hemant Soren and the JMM leadership knows that the road ahead won’t be easy enough and the chief minister has been citing this in his speeches where he is also flagging the multiple schemes launched by his government for women and the aged, who form the linchpin of the electorate.
“Soon after we came to power, the BJP has been trying to bring it down. They are trying to win the election with muscle and money power. The central agencies have been activated. But they don’t know the reins of the state are still in JMM’s hand,” Hemant said in Gando.
The question now remains as to whether the Soren brothers would be able to retain their strongholds and carry on the legacy of the JMM patriarch.