With his announcement of forming a new political party, the former Jharkhand Chief Minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Champai Soren has put an end to the last few days of media speculation. 

This again brings into focus the experiments with ‘warming-the-seat’ stand-in CMs that political parties have resorted to once their pivotal leader leaves the top office temporarily for different reasons: sometimes political, but mostly because of legal compulsions. So how do the equations of party loyalty and temporary reset rarely stick to the script but mostly break down to give way to misgivings and rebellion within a short span of time?

The unfolding of the latest stand-in CM tale in Ranchi has some key elements of concentration of power in family-controlled parties, the reading of political context when leadership roles are linked to patronage, and how stints at the top echelons of power may make even the party veterans lose sight of the inherent nature of the party and its chain of command. 

The political circles in Ranchi had been abuzz with guesses about Champai’s next move after he expressed his anguish over being insulted and unceremoniously removed last month by his party as the state’s 12th CM. His short tenure came to an abrupt end after former CM and the party’s executive president, Hemant Soren, was released on bail in June and expectedly moved to take back the reins of the state government. Earlier in January, a stopgap CM was needed when Hemant had to resign from the CM’s post once it became clear that he would be arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged corruption case.

Given the fact that JMM, like many other regional parties, is dynastic in its top leadership structure and highly centralised in decision-making, Champai was an interesting pick. But in opting for someone as stand-in CM outside the family fold, Hemant’s decision probably shaped the power feuds within the family. His sister-in-law, Sita Soren, who was then the party’s MLA from Jama, could have been the stand-in pick, but Hemant didn’t trust his late brother’s wife’s rival ambitions as well as its messaging within the party. Since then, she has left the party to join the BJP in March this year. 

Hemant wasn’t convinced about the readiness of the next line of leadership within the family, unsure about how entrusting his wife Kalpana Soren, also an MLA, would play out to be in terms of political acumen and organisation management. This was quite unlike what Lalu Prasad Yadav chose to do in 1997, when the fodder scam allegations forced him to leave the CM’s chair. In a sudden move, he picked his politically novice wife, Rabri Devi, for chief ministership over other senior RJD leaders. 

As different reasons for constraints of choice within the family were visible for Hemant, Champai emerged as a reliable option because of his long and trusted association with the party leadership, going back to the Jharkhand movement years led by JMM founder Shibu Soren. As Hemant took on the mantle of JMM from his father, his pick factored in such loyalty and experience, but the most crucial element in such choices is what comes with being devoid of any threat to the top leadership. The fact that JMM top brass led by Hemant marked him as the harmless old hand at governance who could steer the state government in his absence clearly tilted the decision. So, where did the assessment get it wrong? Perhaps two different kinds of precedents can provide some clues.

First, the Jitan Ram Manjhi episode of JDU in Bihar in 2015 could be taken as a precedent of a seat-warming stand-in CM who turned against the party chief and became non-complaint when asked to vacate the seat. 

In 2014, while taking moral responsibility for the party’s dismal performance in the Lok Sabha polls, Nitish Kumar stepped down as CM and let Jitan Manjhi, a leader representing Nitish’s newly-carved social category of the Mahadalit community, take over as CM. But, within a few months, Manjhi tried to come on his own, fancied his chances of bringing some legislators to his side, and lost sight of the stopgap nature of his stint as the head of state government. Even though JDU isn’t a family-run party, quite remarkable for a regional party, Nitish is the pivot of centralised decision-making. Once Manjhi refused to make way for Nitish’s return, the party had to expel him, and he had to later blink and resign. Following such an unceremonious exit, Manjhi formed a new party, Hindustan Awami Morcha (S).

Interestingly, Champai Soren has also decided to form his own party, relying on support from some sections of tribals, as Jitan Manjhi eyed a section of the Mahadalit electorate while forming his party. Both leaders did so when they failed to get support from even a few legislators of the party whose government they headed as stand-in CMs. 

If Champai could have secured the support of a few legislators, he would have been an attractive catch for the BJP. But even the support of four MLAs, who were expected to side with him, disappeared as they chose to stick by the official party line that reiterated its faith in Hemant Soren’s leadership. 

However, one clear difference between the contexts in which Jitan Ram Manjhi and Champai Soren found themselves lies in the fact that Nitish had vacated the chair because of his political reasoning and messaging and returned with his own timing, while Hemant did so under legal compulsions. Second, unlike Hemant’s JMM, the JDU led by Nitish has never followed dynastic politics in succession, although the decision-making is centralised in the hands of its top leader. 

Second, the other precedent could be a study in contrast, a case of a trusted party lieutenant acting as the stopgap face and seamlessly vacating the chair for the party supremo. That’s what O Panneerselvam did when AIADMK chief Jayalalalithaa chose him to replace her when she was barred by the Supreme Court from holding the office following her conviction in a corruption case. His tenure lasted almost six months, from September 2001 to March 2002, and he left the office for his party chief after Madras High Court overturned her conviction. Even during those six months in office, newspaper reports talked about his devotee-like reverence for his leader, with some saying that in the office, he didn’t sit on the same chair as his predecessor as a mark of respect for her. This stands in sharp contrast to the resentful episodes witnessed in the departing notes of Champai and that of Manjhi earlier. 

In the shifting sands of political alignments, the stand-in choices for top seats of power have become tricky for political parties, and more so for parties controlled by family fiefdoms and centralised command structures. The Champai episode might be read as an episode of muddled ambitions and misreading of power stint, but it also mirrors the cavalier dispensability of the party workforce as a subtext of dynastic politics. Seat-warming could be a test of party loyalty, but it also shows how hegemonic the hold of an individual or a family is over the organisation of most political parties in the country.

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