SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, May 17: Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur today said that the whole country is looking to the Congress at the Centre so there is need to control one’s ambition.
Reacting to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s support to Mamata Banerjee’s formula of opposition unity for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Thakur said the yardstick to assess the electoral strength of a party is already there in Jharkhand. “Moreover, it is a matter of assessment as to Who is strong where. And, the assessment of one’s strength should be done in the right perspective, keeping the people at the centre,” he told this writer.
“However, it is the internal issue of the coalition and should be discussed at a proper platform, One should avoid giving statements before a discussion takes place on the seat-sharing formula,” Thakur maintained.
CM Hemant Soren, according to a TV channel report, has supported Mamata Banerjee’s formula of opposition unity saying that where Congress is strong, the regional party will support Congress. Where the local party is strong, give Congress support to the regional party. “Whenever people travel in a bus, they have to give seats to each other,” he said after meeting with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. He also discussed the issue of opposition unity with Kharge.
Soren’s stand implied that this time the JMM, leading the government in Jharkhand, wants to play a big brother’s role in the state in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections too.
Under the seat-sharing formula in the past whenever the two parties have fought elections in coalition, the JMM played a junior partner in the Lok Sabha elections but contested more seats in the Assembly elections
For example, the Congress had fought seven seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leaving four for the JMM, two for the JVM and one for the RJD.
However, the JMM had failed to make an impact in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and bagged only one out of 14 seats in the state. The Congress too had won one seat. The JMM performance in 2019 was poorer than that in 2014, in which the party had won two seats from the tribal bastion of Santhal Pargana. At present, the JMM has two MPs in Rajya Sabha.
On Monday, the Trinamool Congress chief said that her party would support the Congress “wherever it is strong”. However, she stressed that Congress should reciprocate the same attitude towards the TMC if it wanted her support.
The statement, however, did not go well with the Congress party which came down heavily on Banerjee saying that it will “definitely fight” everywhere required.
“We will definitely fight…why only Bengal, we will fight everywhere required,” Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.
