Dumka, March 18: This April, the BJP will have to fight the Lok Sabha polls not only against an old guard of the party in Santhal Pargana, but also members of other saffron outfits that it reared for decades.

The party has been putting up a brave front even after losing grassroots workers to JVM(P) chief Babulal Marandi, who gave it a taste of victory from Koderma during the last parliamentary election.

“The Marandi factor hardly damages our vote banks because we have managed to strengthen grassroots level network of the party,” said BJP state president Raghuvar Das at Deoghar recently.

The party’s senior workers here, however, doubted Das’s claim. “We have to catch the fish in troubled water,” said one of them.

They admitted that the departure of Marandi along with a sizeable number of hardcore party activists, the BJP had to face many problems this time.

Political observers said that two grassroots saffron organisations — RSS and Giri Vanbasi Kendra in Santhal Pargana — had played major roles for the lone BJP seat victory in earlier polls, especially during the 1999 polls when the party managed two seats here.

“Marandi, who started his carrier as an RSS campaigner in Santhal Pargana, had good relation with grassroots-level workers. After his departure, the two major saffron wings of the BJP are lying defunct,” they claimed.

A senior RSS activist at Dumka, on condition of anonymity, echoed the same. “RSS has virtually become defunct, but Giri Vanbasi Kendra is working in rural parts of Sahebganj,” he said.

BJP claimed all three candidates — former state minister Devidhan Besra (Rajmahal), Jama MLA Sunil Soren (Dumka) and Nishikant Dubey (Godda) — have strong rural support in Santhal Pargana.

On the other hand, JVM (P) has put up Ramesh Hembrom from Dumka, Pradeep Yadav from Godda and Som Marandi from Rajmahal.