VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, March 28: The BJP was surprisingly missing its belligerence during the recently concluded budget session of the Jharkhand assembly. Many party insiders, including MLAs, felt that the BJP as the opposition squandered opportunities to corner the Hemant Soren government on various crucial issues.
Former chief minister Babulal Marandi whom the BJP nominated as leader of the legislative party maintained a studied silence — except on a few occasions — as if his legislative flock was floating in a directionless drift. And the rest occasionally cried foul against the government, jumped in the well, and flashed placards to grab newspaper attention. But that was not enough to bring the government under pressure and expose its follies.
“Coordination may be missing at some points, but we cornered the government and made ministers speechless,” said an MLA of the BJP. The BJP had the opportunity to corner chief minister Hemant Soren for allegedly obtaining a mining lease in his name. But except for occasional shouting, the BJP hardly raised that matter. An MLA claimed that Babulal Marandi wanted MLAs to raise that matter. But a couple of MLAs apparently said that the CM should not be blamed since he was misled by his officials.
At least there were three occasions when the issue related to Sahibganj hogged the limelight during the assembly session namely the alleged custodial death of a Dalit man Debu Turi, suspension, and restoration licenses of stone crusher units, and the cargo ship tragedy. On the issue of custodial death, the BJP created a ruckus. Independent MLA Saryu Roy had raised the matter of stone crusher units and the status of 231 mining leases. The BJP jumped in support of Roy only after Roy made ministers fumble. Roy had come well prepared but not the BJP which seemed to be undecided on how to punch the government.
On the issue of cargo ship accident in river Ganga, Babulal Marandi emphatically demanded the CBI inquiry. The demand was aimed to grill the government and the local administration on the issue of illegal stone mining in Sahibganj. Illegal mining is an issue where even a couple of JMM MLAs are critical to the government. But the required intensities were missing and the government had an easy escape. Incidentally, the Rajmahal constituency is represented by BJP MLA Anant Ojha.
The budget session of the assembly had 80 hours as total business time, there were at least two issues where there was a division of opinion in the ruling party. The Hemant Soren-led JMM-Congress-RJD government had to face protest from its own MLA on the issue of illegal stone mining in Sahibganj and the decision of the government not to introduce 1932 khatiyan as the cut-off date to decide the domicile policy for Jharkhand.
Even when the tradition of Chief Minister Question Hour was abolished, the BJP did not demand a headcount to know whether or not the majority of members wanted the CM to face the House on the policy issue. Instead, they were interested in a substantial increase in the MLA Local Area Development Fund. In a rare case of flattery, BJP’s frontbencher, Ramchandra Chandravanshi praised CM Hemant Soren as an incarnation of God.
