SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, May 25: Jharkhand Governor C P Radhakrishnan addressing Hemant Soren as ‘dynamic chief minister’ at a function held on Wednesday to inaugurate the new Jharkhand high court building has upset the BJP.
“We are shocked to hear it from the Governor. For, we have been vociferously spearheading a campaign for the last three years to discredit Chief Minister Hemant Soren as incompetent and being neck-deep in corruption, particularly after the ED unearthed Rs 1000 crore stone mining scam in Sahibganj and the multi-crore land scam in Ranchi involving his close associates and trusted officers. The BJP has been consistently telling the people that Hemant Soren happens to be the fountainhead of all corruption in Jharkhand,” pointed out a senior BJP leader requesting anonymity.
“Even Home Minister Amit Shah, in the past, has dubbed the Soren government as the most corrupt one in the country,” he said and added, “The Governor lavishing praise on Soren has confused us.”
“We do not want the governor to be discourteous to the chief minister on a public platform, but he should have avoided using laudatory adjectives for him,” the BJP leader said.
Incidentally, the newly appointed governor had made an unscheduled courtesy call on JMM chief Shibu Soren too a few days back surprising one and all. “This gesture may win accolades for him, but it hits our fight for clean and corruption-free governance in Jharkhand,” maintained another BJP leader.
Notably, there is nothing wrong for the governor, supposed to be a non-partisan constitutional head of the state, to have a healthy relation with the chief minister, particularly when several governors have been accused by the Opposition of being used by the Centre as a tool to destabilise a democratically elected government. But the BJP expects that the Governor is the Centre’s emissary and should not send such a message which may prove counterproductive for the party’s fortunes during the elections.
A political watcher, though said that the gesture shown by the governor might have been part of the central BJP strategy to keep the tribals in good humour or bridge the gap with the JMM, a senior BJP leader denied that the party has any tacit understanding with the JMM keeping in view the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
“Had there been any tacit understanding between the JMM and the BJP Central leadership, Hemant Soren would not have rolled out a red carpet for Nitish Kumar. He would not have been consistently firing salvos at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also, he would have avoided joining hands with the Opposition leaders in Bengaluru,” he reasoned.
Incidentally, Radhakrishnan’s predecessor Ramesh Bais’ parting shot too had pained the BJP. After his farewell in February, Bais had described Soren as a ‘good leader’ and blamed the ‘lack of vision among officers and leaders’ for the stunted Jharkhand’s growth.
On the office of profit case, he had said, “I did not take any further step on the Election Commission letter…I saw that governments in Jharkhand were not stable and I did not want to obstruct development.”
Soren was embroiled in an office of profit case that carried the risk of him losing his membership of Jharkhand assembly following the EC recommendations on a stone mining lease case filed by the BJP.
Incidentally, Bais had faced the anger of the JMM in the wake of the office of profit controversy.
Last year, the issue had escalated into a full-blown crisis and Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led coalition parked its MLAs in neighbouring Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh’s resort to prevent any attempts at poaching to topple the government.
However, the issue slowly faded into background as Bais is believed to have not taken action at the instance of the Centre, which apparently feared that the action against Hemant Soren might antagonise the tribal voters. But his ‘good leader’ remark for Soren surprised the BJP no end.
