New Delhi: To take on Jharkhand heavyweight Hemant Soren in Barhait, an assembly constituency that is the stronghold of the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded popular football enthusiast Gamliyel Hembrom—a former teacher who is said to have left Christianity to become a tribal.
Hembrom, known in Barhait for social service and organising football tournaments, has clearly not been picked for his winning prowess—he lost his security deposit in 2019 when he had squared off with Soren on an AJSU (All Jharkhand Students Union) ticket.
The BJP’s selection of a Christian-turned-tribal to contest against the CM is instead rather symbolic, as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliates have long been running a campaign in Jharkhand against “decline in number of tribals due to conversion” to Christianity and Islam, and exhorting for their ‘ghar wapsi’ or reconversion.
While the tribals or adivasis don’t consider themselves as part of Hinduism and practise a form of nature worship, the Sangh and others have been trying to assimilate them under the same.
Hembrom, 33, is known to have deep roots in the RSS, the BJP’s ideological parent, and served as a para teacher in Jharkhand from 2010 to 2019. His first encounter with politics was in 2019, when he quit his teaching job and entered the poll fray against Soren. He joined the BJP after the elections that year.
The party Monday announced his candidature from Barhait, a constituency reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
“My work towards social service started when I saw poor tribals wandering in villages to even get a caste certificate,” Hembrom told ThePrint Friday, adding that while he started by helping tribals solve their problems, he became known in Barhait because of football.
Hembrom rose to popularity due to his organisation of a football tournament every year on Jharkhand Statehood Day on 15 November in which, he claims, even foreign players come to participate. This year, the tournament is scheduled from 13 to 15 November, with prize money of Rs 20-35 lakh.
“When I saw that youth in small villages had nothing to engage in, I decided to empower them and started the football tournament. It has now become one of the most sought-after events in the state and players come from abroad to participate,” he said.
“I formed the Jai Hind Club that organises the tournament, and it has a YouTube channel where tribal football enthusiasts in villages make videos and post them to popularise the event and increase youth participation. Around 50,000 to 60,000 people participate in it.”
A close confidant of Hembrom told ThePrint: “Gamliyel often sold his land to organise the football tournament. Although his club has formed a village committee to collect money for the event, funds were often less.”
Elaborating about his social work, Hembrom said that during Covid times, he organised blood donation camps and helped people by distributing rice and pulses. He also taught 150 children at a night school in Khairwa village.
“I felt the desire to change lives when I saw that the poor in a village were making a road by selling the rice they had got under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana. Such is the backwardness in Barhait despite it being the CM’s constituency,” he added.
Hembrom fits into BJP’s symbolism politics as he undertook ghar wapsi from Christianity, a local BJP leader said.
“The party has been forming a narrative of decline in tribal numbers due to their conversion to Christianity and Islam. Hembrom is young and has influence among youth. In the last state election, BJP candidate Simon Malto had got 47,985 votes against Soren. This time, the party is hopeful of getting more votes due to Hembrom’s football connection,” he explained.
Elections in Jharkhand will be held in two phases, on 13 and 20 November. The results will be declared on 23 November.
Also Read: RSS & VHP call religious conversion a form of ‘violence’, to launch campaign to curb it
‘Hembrom instrumental in stopping conversion of tribals’
While the people close to Hembrom say his ancestry is Christian, BJP leaders claim “he undertook ghar wapsi to Sanatan Dharma in 2017” in Sahibganj district in the Santhal Pargana division.
“BJP and RSS affiliates have been running a campaign of ghar wapsi, so when Hembrom started work as an RSS volunteer, he undertook ghar wapsi and since then has been instrumental in stopping religious conversion of tribals in this area. He has organised many camps and even led an agitation against Bangladesh infiltration, which is a major issue in Santhal Pargana division,” BJP’s Sahibganj chief Ujjwal Mandal told ThePrint.
A BJP senior state leader said that the party was finding it difficult to pick a candidate to stand against Soren in Barhait, and that Hembrom was chosen “at the last minute”.
“The BJP’s first choice was Louis Marandi who had defeated Soren in Dumka (in 2014) but she was not interested in contesting from Barhait and she (last month) left the party to join the JMM. So the party was finding it difficult to get a candidate here. At the last moment, Hembrom was fielded,” the leader told ThePrint.
The local BJP leader mentioned earlier conceded that “despite the party’s push, knowing the make-up of Barhait, a BJP win is challenging”.
He said that tribals constitute more than 50 percent of population in the constituency and Muslims make up 15 percent.
“In the last election, we had fielded a candidate hoping to get votes from the pahadiya (Santhal tribals who live in the mountains) as they support the BJP, but we did not win. This time, we are expecting more votes than we got in 2019 but can’t say about victory,” he added.
Defeating Soren in Barhait would be challenging for the BJP as the JMM has held the seat since 1990 while Soren himself has won it twice, in 2014 and 2019.
Hemlal Murmu had won the seat for the JMM in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2009, but he later joined the BJP. When the party fielded him against Soren in 2014, Murmu got only 38,428 votes against Soren’s 62,515.
Trading charges
After the JMM alleged earlier this week that the BJP was trying to poach Soren’s proposer Mandal Murmu in order to embarrass him, Hembrom has now alleged that there is a discrepancy in Soren’s poll affidavit regarding his age and income.
On Wednesday, Hembrom filed a complaint with the Election Commission stating that Soren had mentioned his age as 42 years in his affidavit for the 2019 assembly elections but had mentioned it as 49 years now in the affidavit.
“How can the age of a person increase by seven in five years,” Hembrom has claimed in the complaint, requesting cancellation of the CM’s nomination.
Jharkhand BJP chief Babulal Marandi attacked the CM Friday, telling the media: “Hemant Soren is not fighting elections for the first time. How come he is giving such incorrect information, or are his people not bothering to cross-check the information in the affidavit?”
JMM spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya responded by saying that the BJP is “only making excuses to use the EC to create a disturbance in the election, and the people will give a reply”.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)