A day after the Assembly passed a resolution against a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Jharkhand, the Leader of the Opposition, BJP’s Babulal Marandi, claimed that the proportion of “sanatanis” in the state’s population, including Dalits and Adivasis, has steadily declined since 1951 while that of the Muslim community has increased.
Marandi claimed that “sanatanis”, who accounted for 87.79 percent of the state’s population in the 1951 census, had dropped to around 81 percent by the 2011 census.
Criticising the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the INDIA bloc for passing the resolution against the SIR, he alleged that the Jharkhand government was attempting to alter the state’s demography by granting voting rights to “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and “Rohingya Muslims”.
“The Adivasi population was around 35 per cent in 1951, which has now reduced to 26 per cent, while the Muslim population, which stood at around 8 per cent, has jumped to about 14 per cent. This shows a conspiracy by the community to marry Adivasi women and grab land and positions in their name,” Marandi claimed.
The JMM strongly countered the allegations. Tanuj Khatri, Central Committee Member of the JMM, said the decline in Adivasi numbers is known to be caused by migration, unemployment and displacement due to mining and industries, policies largely pushed under BJP rule.
Marandi, meanwhile, said if the population trend continued, “infiltrators” would end up holding positions as MLAs and MPs. Marandi claimed that the increase in the Muslim population was “not a natural or organic process but an artificial one,” accusing the JMM and its allies of deliberately facilitating infiltrators’ settlement in Jharkhand. “They want them to settle here, give them land, ration cards and other benefits. We saw their clear intention in yesterday’s Assembly session when they passed the resolution,” he alleged.
Backing the SIR, Marandi said that while the number of voters in the country rose by around 10 per cent between 2019 and 2024, Jharkhand recorded a corresponding growth of nearly 16 per cent. “Why is this increase in voters seen only under the JMM and its allies, and not during the BJP’s tenure from 2014 to 2019?” he asked.
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Marandi said that in Simdega district, the number of Muslim voters rose from around 9,308 in 2019 to about 16,605 in 2024. “Similar demographic changes have been recorded in several Assembly constituencies. This is a carefully planned strategy to build a vote bank. We will now urge the Election Commission to verify each and every voter,” he said.
JMM’s Khatri said: “When the BJP was in power, it tried to weaken the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act, dilute the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, and grab land from Adivasis. Now the same party is staging drama in the name of protecting Adivasi interests,” he said.
Instead of raising real issues such as jobs, inflation and farmers’ struggles, the BJP is busy spreading misinformation through divisive politics, he said.
“Instead of accepting responsibility, they are pointing fingers and spreading communal propaganda. Whenever the BJP loses ground, it falls back on lies and communal politics. The people of Jharkhand are smart enough to see through these tactics. They want jobs, education, justice, and development, not the BJP’s divisive politics,” he said.
