(This is the 13th in a series of insightful reports from the ground, titled The Race From India to Bharat. The author travels all across India as 960 million voters get ready to celebrate the largest festival of democracy in the world: the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. What do ordinary Indians think and feel about the past, present, and future of India? Are they convinced that the old fault lines are healing?)
(Read part one here, part two here, part three here, part four here, part five here, part six here, part seven here, part eight here, part nine here, part 10 here, part 11 here, and part 12 here.)
Soon after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Jharkhand Chief Minister (now former) Hemant Soren, the author wrote a column here describing how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) treats politics as unrestricted political warfare. On the outskirts of Ranchi at a Dhaba, the author talked to a bunch of youngsters who are die-hard supporters of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
They are voluble in saying that the Modi-Shah duo has taken vindictive action against their leader by arresting him on trumped-up charges. They claim there is a huge undercurrent of sympathy for Hemant Soren and that voters this time will teach a lesson to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.