As Jharkhand gears up for the second phase of Assembly elections on Wednesday, November 20, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been called out for its Islamophobic and dehumanizing advertisements targeting Muslims.
The saffron party posted two ads on different dates promoting an anti-Muslim narrative. Following this, the two major political parties – JMM and Congress – complained to the Election Commission of India (ECI) about BJP’s ads stating it violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as well as fostered pernicious propaganda and false narratives aimed at inciting communal tensions to gain electoral benefits.
The ECI ordered Jharkhand’s chief electoral officer (CEO) to issue takedown notices to social media platforms including X, section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act.
Although the ads have been removed from the X handle of Jharkhand BJP, several pro-BJP accounts continue to share the advertisements.
On November 9, the BJP released an advertisement featuring actors portraying JMM chief Hemant Soren and his wife, Kalpana Murmu Soren, who is also a party leader. In the ad, she is shown enjoying branded watches and sunglasses. Later, the actor representing Hemant Soren converses with actors playing Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Tejashwi Yadav, the chairman of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). They discuss strategies to mislead voters.
“Today, my mother told me that when my grandmother was the Prime Minister, she had forces open fire at Jharkhand statehood revolutionaries and eleven Adivasis were killed. She was amazing,” says the actor playing Rahul Gandhi.
To this, the actor playing Tejashwi Yadav replies, “Even in Bihar, she banned Adivasis from carrying weapons like bows and arrows. My father had said that if Jharkhand is formed, it would be on these (tribal) people’s dead bodies.”
Then, the actor playing Hemant Soren says, “This is what politics is. Now, we hypocrites will pose as Jharkhandis and seek votes, and these people will help us,” pointing to four Muslim men wearing skull caps. They enter the room and say ‘Adaab’.
The video ends with the caption: “Each promise is false. Hemant Soren has looted Jharkhand. We must defeat greed and hypocrisy. This time, lotus must bloom in Jharkhand.”
The Congress filed a complaint to the Election Commissioner of India (ECI) terming the ad as “an act of serious criminality” and that the BJP had overstepped the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
On November 16, the BJP X handle released another ad which has become massively viral due to its blatant Islamophobic visuals.
The ad starts by showing a Hindu family living peacefully while JMM’s flags adorn their entry door.
When the doorbell rings, the man of the house opens it only to find a large number of Muslims who forcefully enter and start creating chaos.
Meanwhile, a placard with the punchline “Pure Jharkhand ka kayapalat kar denge” (we would change the entire state of Jharkhand) pops up on the wall.
The video concludes with two people in a “Basti” (slum) conveying a threat and stating, “The people you voted for brought these people here. So why should our “basti” be the only one to be destroyed?”
The ad concludes with, “Ek bhi galthi sab ko padegi bhaari, ab karo BJP ko laane ki baari (One mistake will be costly for everyone, now it’s time to bring the BJP).”
This statement implies that voting for the JMM could harm the Hindu community, instilling communal disharmony and fear to encourage voters to choose the BJP.
This ad was pulled down after the election commission’s notice to the BJP.
The JMM and Congress parties have criticised BJP’s tactics of trying to communalise politics in Jharkhand terming the BJP campaign as shameless and vulgar and alleging that it was part of the BJP’s Islamophobic campaign trail in Jharkhand.
This campaign has been characterised by referring to Muslims as intruders from Bangladesh, an electoral strategy that the BJP has been known to use in previous poll campaigns. Jharkhand’s chief minister, Hemant Soren of JMM slammed the BJP for using fear-mongering tactics to manipulate the voters.
