Identity politics finds a fresh level

In the coming days, a new political refrain - Hindu, Muslim, or tribal, I am a proud Jharkhandi - can be expected from Ranchi

The 2019 Assembly elections saw the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) resounding defeat to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, and other smaller parties. Raghubar Das, the incumbent BJP chief minister, couldn’t even win his own seat (Jamshedpur East) and lost to a former colleague, Saryu Roy, by more than 15,000 votes, not a small margin for an Assembly election. In the 81-seat Assembly, the JMM alone has 30 seats and the configuration of the legislature is such that even if the BJP wants, with just 25 seats it cannot engineer enough defections to