The Hindu : `Split in tribal votes behind opposition defeat'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2002

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`Split in tribal votes behind opposition defeat'

Jamshedpur Dec 16. Analysing their defeat in the Godda Lok Sabha by-election, Opposition Jharkhand Disom Party and Jharkhand People's Party today felt the division in the tribal votes was the main reason behind their losing.

However, the main Opposition party, ``the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's drubbing was due to its dilly-dallying attitude towards domicile and reservation policies'', JPP chief Surya Singh Besra said.

In a press statement here, he said had the opposition parties put up a common candidate they could have wrested the seat with a record margin.

To buttress his point, Besra, the AJSU founder, said that while the BJP candidate polled 2,35,939 votes, the opposition parties (Congress, JMM and RJD) together could muster 3.35 lakh votes.

Criticising the opposition parties for failing to come under a common platform, Besra felt that the domicile and reservation policies in Jharkhand could create a ``political polarisation in favour of Adivasi-Moolvasi like the BJP's Hindutva in Gujarat'' and appealed to the Jharkhand-based parties to shun differences on the issue and unite to achieve the goal.

Jharkhand Disom Party's founder Salkhan Murmu said that the outcome of the by-poll was certainly a ``defeat'' for pro-domicile Adivasi-Moolvasi groups.

Murmu, a BJP MP, who broke away from the party to form the JPP, in a release said that the result had given a ``body blow'' to the claim by JMM supremo Sibu Soren that Jharkhand masses looked to him as the next chief minister. -- PTI

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`Split in tribal votes behind opposition defeat'