Why Jharkhand's chief minister chair has been a musical chair since 2000

Since 2000, Jharkhand has had seven chief ministers, but only one completed a full term, reflecting its unstable and coalition-driven politics

Since its inception in 2000, Jharkhand has seen seven politicians assume the role of Chief Minister, but only Raghubar Das has served a full five-year term. No party has ever secured a clear majority in the state’s five Assembly elections, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) emerging as the dominant political forces in a landscape marked by instability and coalition politics, The Indian Express reported.

 

The idea of Jharkhand 

The seeds of Jharkhand’s creation were sown even before India’s independence. A sub-committee of the Constituent Assembly briefly explored carving out a new province in South Bihar to address the unique needs of tribal and backward communities.

 

In the 1952 general elections, Jaipal Singh Munda’s Jharkhand Party championed the demand for a tribal state, winning three Lok Sabha seats and 32 Bihar Assembly seats. Subsequently, 36 Bihar Assembly members pushed for a new state comprising Chhotanagpur, Santhal Parganas, and parts of Odisha and West Bengal. However, the States Reorganisation Commission rejected the proposal, citing economic interdependence and its potential impact on Bihar.

 

Despite support from leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Jaiprakash Narayan, Bihar remained undivided. Notably, only one Chief Minister of undivided Bihar, KB Sahay (1963–67), hailed from the region that would later become Jharkhand.

 

The birth of a new state 

On November 15, 2000, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government created three new states—Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Chhattisgarh—fulfilling long-standing regional demands. Jharkhand, comprising 18 districts from South Bihar, was inaugurated on tribal leader Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary.

 

Rich in mineral resources, the state inherited 81 of Bihar’s 324 Assembly seats and 14 of its 54 Lok Sabha constituencies. Babulal Marandi, a tribal leader with roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), became Jharkhand’s first Chief Minister. The BJP had dominated the region, winning 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in 1998.

 

Factionalism and political instability 

The BJP’s dominance was short-lived as factionalism emerged between Marandi and Arjun Munda, a former JMM leader who had joined the BJP. This infighting, coupled with challenges from the JMM, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Congress, destabilised the party.

 

In 2003, Marandi was replaced by Munda as Chief Minister. The BJP's fortunes further declined in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, as the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance swept 13 of the 14 seats. In the 2005 Assembly election, Shibu Soren briefly became CM but resigned after failing to prove his majority, allowing Munda to lead a fragile coalition government.

 

Marandi’s exit from the BJP in 2006 and the formation of his Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) further fragmented the political landscape.

 

A decade of turmoil 

Jharkhand’s early years were plagued by instability. Munda’s tenure ended in 2006, when Madhu Koda, an Independent MLA, became Chief Minister with support from smaller parties. Koda’s government collapsed in 2008 amidst corruption allegations, leading to his arrest and conviction in a coal scam.

 

The BJP and JMM formed an uneasy alliance, with Munda returning as CM and Hemant Soren as his deputy. However, the alliance fell apart, and in 2013, Hemant Soren became Chief Minister.

 

Experimenting with leadership 

The 2014 Narendra Modi wave brought the BJP back to power in Jharkhand with 37 Assembly seats. Breaking tradition, the party appointed Raghubar Das, a non-tribal leader, as Chief Minister. Das delivered Jharkhand’s first stable five-year government.

 

However, in 2019, the BJP lost ground, securing just 25 seats, while the JMM-Congress alliance swept to power. Hemant Soren returned as CM but resigned earlier this year following allegations in a land scam. His brief replacement, Champai Soren, later joined the BJP after Hemant resumed office in July.

 

Today, Jharkhand’s political scene is a mosaic of shifting alliances and renewed ambitions. Babulal Marandi, who rejoined the BJP in 2019, now leads the party in the state, while Arjun Munda, once a central figure, remains in the shadows after stepping down as Union Minister.