VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Feb 2: Jharkhand Congress is excited after former presidents Pradeep Balmuchu and Sukhdeo Bhagat rejoined the Congress a few days back. But many in the party have kept their fingers crossed on the question of whether or not their comeback will help the party.
Besides Balmuchu and Bhagat; Dr. Ajoy Kumar was among three former presidents of Jharkhand Congress who had quit the party during the time of the assembly election in 2019.
Many other senior leaders like Sarfaraz Ahmed had quit the Congress. But the trio quitting the Congress one by one had particularly brought a poor impression. Many believed and began to propagate that the Congress was a sinking boat in the assembly election.
But the Congress contesting assembly elections in alliance with the Hemant Soren- led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Lalu Prasad- led Rashtriya Janata Dal registered a phenomenal victory against the BJP.
The three-time MLA Balmuchu joined the Ajsu Party and got the ticket to contest from Ghatsila seat. But he lost the election in his home borough. The two-time MLA from Lohardaga, Bhagat, who had joined the BJP, met a similar fate.
Dr. Ajoy quit the party months before the assembly election and joined the Aam Aadmi Party. But Dr. Ajoy re-joined the Congress in September 2020 sensing that the space was too limited for him in AAP to flap his electoral and political wings. Later on, the central leadership appointed him as in-charge of Sikkim, Nagaland, and Tripura.
“We welcome them. They realized that they were politically relevant because of the Congress. They were driven by high political ambitions hence they quit the Congress which gave them everything. But they had made the wrong move. Bhagat has admitted that joining the BJP was his wrong decision,” said a senior Congress leader.
The leader said that it was too early to comment on how their comeback would help the Congress and their future role and responsibility in the Congress.
Contesting as the BJP nominee from Lohardaga, he had realized that all these years he mistook Muslims and Christians as his personal votes. After his poll debacle, he started maintaining distance with the BJP. Fulfilling his wish, the BJP expelled him from the party in October 2020.
For the past two years right after the assembly election both of them were making moves for their comeback. But for them, it was too tough to gain the confidence of the central leadership.
Well-informed sources in the Congress had confided that about two months before Bhagat joined the BJP, he had met Sonia Gandhi to complain against some leaders for pushing him to the margin. A senior leader had impressed upon Sonia Gandhi to meet him as she was reluctant to give an audience to him knowing that Bhagat was in touch with the BJP.
In their case, other than local factors, the central leadership made them wait for more than two years before giving a green signal for their joining.
