Raghuvar Das: The rise of BJP's grassroot worker to Jharkhand CM nominee

NEW DELHI: Fourteen years after it was carved out of Bihar with a promise to satisfy the aspirations of tribal communities, Jharkhand will have its first non-tribal CM with BJP on Friday electing its national vicepresident Raghubar Das as its CM nominee.

BJP national vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who was one of observers at the party MLAs’ meeting that elected Das, said the chief minister nominee represented the “aspirations of all people of Jharkhand and it did not matter that he is not a tribal”. BJP’s choice of Das, a former employee of Tata Steel, has not come a surprise to many observers as the party recently installed a non-Maratha chief minister in Maharashtra and a non-Jat chief minister in Haryana.

Jharkhand BJP insiders described Das, 59, as a quick decision maker and credited him with growing the party in the state. “Despite being a big leader here, he pays a lot of attention to the welfare of the members. It’s solely because of his efforts that the membership has risen in the state significantly in the last few years,” said Rakesh Prasad, state vice president of the party.

Some critics such as writer and activist Aloka, however, accused BJP of dishonouring tribals by declaring a non-tribal as the chief minister in a state “formed with the sole motive to fulfil the aspirations of tribal community”.

“Even for the many years they were in power, they could never understand the problems of displacement and encroachment of mainlands by corporates. Those are only going to increase now,” Aloka said.

Xavier Dias of the Jharkhand Mines Area Co-ordination Committee said, “It is not that the BJP did not have an Adivasi leader. They put up a non-Adivasi because it is part of their planned effort to marginalise the tribals.” He added, “The party is not here to stay for long because it doesn’t understand issues of the tribal population. Even the Adivasis who have joined the party are not happy.”

Das, a five-time MLA from Jamshedpur East, first became a minister in the Jharkhand government in 2000 and served as the deputy CM in the Shibu Soren government in 2009-10. He was one of the 10 national VPs Amit Shah appointed soon after taking over as the BJP president in August 2014.

Originally from Chhattisgarh, Das was born in a Teli family and belongs to the OBC. He grew up in Jamshedpur where his father Chavan Ram was employed with the Tata Steel plant. He did his schooling with Bhalubasa Harijan High School and completed his BSc and law course from Jamshedpur Cooperative College. He joined the Janata Party in 1977 and in 1980, he joined BJP as one of its founding members. He has been the state BJP chief twice.

Das, who has the backing of the Sangh Parivar, has been part of the ABVP and, according to some long-time associates, he was an active participant in the student agitations in 1974 that received the support of Jayaprakash Narayan and led to the Emergency. He was also jailed during the Emergency.