NEW DELHI: The results of the assembly elections concluded on Friday in Jharkhand are crucial for national politics and will likely decide the way ahead for both the BJP and the opposition. About 66% of the electorate cast their votes in the five-phase elections and the counting is scheduled for Monday.
The BJP started its campaign focused on development and by the last phase, it completely shifted towards national issues such as the new citizenship law, National Register of Citizens and Ram Temple. Right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah to Yogi Aditya Nath and other senior leaders, the party spoke largely on the issues of CAB-NRC and tried to put forward a clear view on the subject during the campaign.
At a time when there are nationwide protests against the CAA, a victory for the BJP would be crucial. The party would take it as a stamp of approval for national policies and plan accordingly afterwards. It would also come as a major boost for the party just before the Delhi assembly elections, where it is trying to dethrone the Aam Aadmi Party government. The BJP is starting its Delhi campaign with a rally on Sunday at the Ram Lila Maidan, to be addressed by PM Modi.
For opposition, too, there is lot at stake in the Jharkhand outcome. For the first time, the JMM, Congress and RJD got united for an assembly election, in order to stop division of anti-BJP votes. The opposition mainly focused on regional issues and targeted the local BJP government under chief minister Raghubar Das. The main idea of the opposition was to keep the election Jharkhand-centric.
In the current scenario, in case there is a hung assembly, the opposition would try to follow the Maharashtra model of government where the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress got together to keep the BJP out of power, despite it being the single largest party in the recently held elections.
Source: Economic Times
