Like Lord Ram, Babulal Marandi is returning home after 14 years, a JVM worker shouted on Tuesday after Jharkhand’s first chief minister formally announced his return to the BJP which he quit in 2006 to form the JVM.
Marandi made the announcement on Tuesday at the JVM working committee meeting in Ranchi before all 151 working committee members and 2,500 JVM workers.
All present in the meeting endorsed his resolution. “I carefully analysed the pros and cons of merging the JVM in the BJP. I came to the conclusion that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing excellent work and we need to support him. All JVM workers will get respect in the BJP,” Marandi said.
Marandi said this on a day the AAP swept Delhi polls, the BJP doing much worse than expected. The BJP, which also lost the Jharkhand polls in December, will now have 26 MLAs in the Assembly with Marandi. JVM MLAs Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav, who did not want to join the BJP, were recently expelled.
Marandi moved a four-point resolution before the working committee that was approved. They included the expulsion of MLAs Tirkey and Yadav, treating the JVM legislative body as a part of the BJP legislative body and merger of the JVM in the BJP.
On the MLAs, Marandi said: “Both wanted me to merge the JVM in the Congress.”
There is speculation that the BJP could appoint Marandi as the leader of the Opposition. However, Marandi called it an unconditional merger. “If I am asked to pick up the broom, I will,” he said.
JVM general secretary Tauhid Alam said the proposal would be sent to the BJP’s central leadership. “Other legal processes are pending, but we will organise a joining event on February 17, most likely at Prabhat Tara ground. Top BJP leaders like Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda are likely to come.”
State BJP chief Laxman Gilua called Marandi “a part of the BJP family”. “He is returning home, we welcome him. The central leadership will positively consider the JVM’s merger proposal,” Gilua said.
When Jharkhand was formed on November 15, 2000, Marandi, then with the BJP, became CM for 28 months. It was rumoured that he did not get along with other BJP leaders such as Arjun Munda and Raghubar Das. Marandi resigned in March 2003 and was replaced by Munda as CM.
In 2004, he was the lone man from the BJP to become an MP. But insiders said he was sidelined in the state BJP, and he left in 2006 to form the JVM. In the JVM, he fought polls with Congress and JMM as allies, even when the BJP central leadership sent him feelers to return.
Around 2013-14, the BJP’s then PM candidate Narendra Modi asked Marandi to join the BJP, but Marandi’s core group advised him against it. His anger at the BJP grew when the Das government poached six of his MLAs in 2015.
In the 2019 Assembly polls, the JVM won three seats with 5.45 per cent vote share. But a Marandi loyalist said numbers weren’t everything. “This is a party of eight lakh workers. Look at the trust of workers that Marandi commands even with no financial resources. Workers pooled funds to keep the party running. Marandi is a man of exceptional organisational capacity.”
A BJP insider said that with Marandi’s inclusion, the party would get a popular tribal face in Jharkhand. “Also, Marandi may have realised he needs the BJP to flourish.”