VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, May 31: Jharkhand Congress Avinash Pande held a close one-to-one meeting with MLAs of the party to seek their opinion about the future of the alliance of the party with the JMM after Chief Minister Hemant Soren unilaterally announced Mahua Majhi as the Rajya Sabha candidate of the party.
However, there is no immediate threat to the Hemant Soren-led JMM-Congress-RJD government but a majority of the MLAs said that it is the right time when the party withdraws all its four ministers from the government.
“Better we support the government from the outside rather than staying in the government. Hemant Soren has no respect for the alliance partner and if he has taken us for granted then the Congress should extend support from the outside,” said a senior MLA of the party.
MLAs like Dipika Pandey and Purnima Niraj Singh are vocal in demanding the central leadership to take a final decision regarding the alliance and the government instead of bearing a daily dose of insult from the JMM and the chief minister
The decision of Hemant Soren left the Congress exasperated since the Congress had expected Hemant Soren would leave the Rajya Sabha seat for the Congress. As only two candidates Mahua Majhi of the JMM and Aditya Sahu of the BJP filed their nomination papers for two vacant seats of Rajya Sabha there will be no voting and they will be declared winners. The Congress decided not to field any candidate.
Leaders of the state Congress maintained distance with the JMM and Chief Minister Hemant Soren who was present at the Jharkhand assembly Secretariat where Mahua Majhi filed her nomination papers.
All top leaders and MLAs except legislative party leader Alamgir Alam, MLAs Pradeep Yadav and Anoop Singh huddled at the party headquarters. All were discussing whether the move of Hemant Soren is a subtle signal to the Congress that he doesn’t require the Congress.
“There is a Catch-22 situation for the Congress. We doubt that Hemant Soren has some secret dealing with the BJP. You can see how the Election Commission of India is deferring a hearing of the matter related to the office of the profit of the chief minister and his brother Basant Soren. It can’t be ruled out that the JMM has developed some sort of understanding with the BJP and the Chief Minister wants the Congress to walk out of the alliance. Is there any other humiliation left for the Congress to face when Hemant Soren even did not respect what he had committed to our party president Sonia Gandhi,” said another top leader of the party.
The anger is not against Hemant Soren only. At least two state ministers of the Congress criticized the central leadership for not keeping the state leadership in confidence when Hemant Soren met Sonia Gandhi.
“Hemant Soren wanted a private meeting with Sonia Gandhi to discuss the issue of candidature. Only KC Venugopal was present. The Central leadership should not have accepted such a demand. Neither State Congress President Rajesh Thakur nor Alamgir Alam was invited to be present during that meeting. The Central leadership did not apply its mind that by keeping the state leadership away they have damaged the position of the state unit. The Congress as an organisation has not benefited from this alliance. We should not stay in the alliance in a subdued position,” said a minister.
