Hemant Soren tries to take the fight to Himanta’s turf by demanding ST status for tea-tribes

File photo of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren .
| Photo Credit: PTI

When Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren last week wrote to his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the State’s tea tribes, he was not merely countering the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaign against him in poll-bound Jharkhand.

By asking Mr. Sarma, the co-in-charge of the BJP’s Jharkhand election, to give ST status to 70 lakh members of the tea tribe community, the Jharkhand Chief Minister was trying to take the fight to Mr. Sarma’s turf. The letter is being seen as a well-thought plan to counter the BJP and Mr. Sarma, who are attacking Mr. Soren on the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration.

In his letter to Mr. Sarma on September 25, Mr. Soren had said that the tea tribes were “marginalised” despite their “significant contribution” to the economy of Assam. He had expressed concern about their plight and sought ST status for them. At present, the tea tribe community is categorised as Other Backward Classes. Mr. Soren said that he was aware of the “significant challenges” faced by the tea tribes in Assam because a majority of them are indigenous tribes of Jharkhand, including Santhali, Kuruk, Munda and Oraon, whose ancestors migrated during colonial rule to work in tea plantations.

A JMM functionary said that by raising the ST status for Assam’s tea tribe community, Mr. Soren has given a message that he not only cares about the tribals in his own State but in other States as well. Through the letter, Mr. Soren has indirectly asked Mr. Sarma to focus on the welfare of tribals in Assam instead of talking about demographic changes in Jharkhand.

Hari Oraon, a professor and coordinator of Tribal and Regional Languages at Ranchi University, told The Hindu that “more than 12 lakh people had gone from Jharkhand to work at tea plantations in Assam.”

“Tea tribes are very poor and do not get enough money for their work. There are no schools and colleges near tea gardens and their children don’t get quality education. They only pluck tea leaves and somehow survive,” he said. Mr. Oraon said that leaving the politics aside, the Jharkhand Chief Minister’s assessment of the tea tribe community was fair.

Despite appointing Babulal Marandi the BJP’s State unit president and making Arjun Munda the Union Tribal Affairs Minister in 2019, the party lost all the five ST-reserved seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, including Mr. Munda from Dumka. The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led alliance won these five seats — Khunti, Singhbhum, Lohardaga, Rajmahal and Dumka.

In the run-up to the Assembly election, the BJP is trying to woo the tribal voters by raising the issue of demographic change and calling Bangladeshi infiltration the main reason for the decline in tribal population. It is aiming to win at least 10 tribal seats out of 28 reserved for the STs in the 81-seat Jharkhand Assembly. In the last Assembly election, the BJP won just two seats out of the 28, whereas the JMM won 19 and the Congress six.