MANISH GUPTA
Ranchi, Aug 30: About 36-38 UPA MLAs took a chartered flight to Raipur this afternoon to prevent the BJP from poaching and toppling the current JMM-led government even as Governor Ramesh Bais continues to remain silent on the office-of-profit case.
“Except for the JMM ministers and some others, all the UPA legislators have boarded the flight. There are about 36-38 of us in the flight,” said a Congress MLA as the special Indigo flight made its way towards the runway at Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi.
Sources inform that Congress ministers namely Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon, Health Minister Banna Gupta, Agriculture Minister Badal Patralekh and Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam will return on Wednesday for the Cabinet meeting, which has been deferred by a day on Thursday.
The UPA MLAs gathered at Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s official residence by noon and were supposed to take the flight at around 3pm. However, the meeting went for long and they finally left in two luxury buses for the Ranchi airport at 3:30pm. Hemant Soren and Jharkhand Congress in-charge Avinash Pande had also gone to the airport to see them off.
The legislators are headed to Mayfair Lake Resort in Raipur where 47 rooms have been booked for them, where they will be kept “safe”, sources inform. This is the same resort, on the outskirts of Raipur, where Rajasthan Congress MLAs were lodged in June.
Meanwhile, Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais has maintained complete silence on the office-of-profit case related to the Chief Minister for having allotted himself a stone mine lease while in office, which is likely to disqualify Soren from the assembly.
