SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, July 5: The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) might not have publicly announced to support the NDA presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu after she called on party chief Shibu Soren and Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Monday, indications are enough that it would ultimately support her.
According to sources, though Hemant Soren warmly welcomed Droupadi Murmu but remained non-committal, Shibu Soren assured that the JMM would support her.
“Both Shibu Soren and Droupadi Murmu talked in Santhali language for some time and the former assured her that she will get the JMM’s support,” sources said.
Earlier, the Chief Minister had wished her best luck before she landed in Ranchi to seek votes of all the 81 MLAs of Jharkhand. She had been Governor of Jharkhand for six years and knew almost everyone personally.
Sources said that Hemant Soren, in his meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, is said to have also assured him to support the NDA presidential nominee.
According to political watchers, the JMM, which solely banks on tribal votes in Jharkhand, has no choice but to support Murmu. “But he does not want to be upfront about his intentions as it would ruffle the feathers of the Congress with whom he is running the government,” they said.
The State Congress has already said that it would send a wrong message if the JMM does not vote for UPA candidate Yashwant Sinha. Congress State president Rajesh Thakur, however, also said that the coalition is not for the presidential elections.
The Congress leaders also say, off the record, that they don’t believe Hemant Soren, citing a recent example as how he fielded his own nominee in the Rajya Sabha elections after holding discussion with the party top brass in New Delhi.
Notably, the JMM has indicated since the beginning that it was not on the same page with the Opposition on the presidential candidate. Hemant, facing a slew of serious corruption charges and under the scanner of the Jharkhand High Court, had not attended the Opposition meeting called by Mamata Banerjee to decide the presidential nominee. Again, he was not present when Yashwant Sinha filed his nomination.
Also, Hemant Soren is said to be under pressure from the tribal MLAs to support Murmu. “We had expressed our intention to support Murmu during the meeting called by Guruji and authorised him to take a decision. Let us see what he does,” said JMM MLA Lobin Hembrom, who has already welcomed Droupadi Murmu’s candidature.
Jayshree Soren, the daughter of JMM MLA Sita Soren and grand- daughter of Shibu Soren, who runs Durga Soren Sena, has also called upon the party MLAs and MPs to support Droupadi Murmu.
Though Hemant Soren is not in a bargaining position as the NDA has more than the requisite number of votes in its kitty to elect Droupadi Murmu comfortably, he may extract some assurance to implement his demand for Sarna code to please his constituency.
In November 2020, the JMM-led government, under pressure from the Congress convened a special Assembly session and passed a resolution to send the Centre a letter to recognise Sarna and include it as a separate code in the Census of 2021.
“Hemant Soren can’t afford not to support Murmu. Had the Opposition also fielded a tribal candidate, he had a choice. But when a tribal woman, that too a Santhali, is going to occupy the Rashtrapati Bhawan for the first time, he has no option. Also, Droupadi Murmu visited them to make a personal request. So, the BJP leaders have mounted a sort of etho-political pressure on him to support her,” said a political watcher.
Murmu, 64, with her long career in education as a teacher, and in politics as a two term MLA and minister (between 2000-2004) in the coalition government of the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal-BJP government in the State and her record as being the first governor of Jharkhand to complete the full term (2015-2021) more than fits the bill.
She had taken over as the first tribal Governor of Jharkhand in 2015 after the BJP experimented with a non-tribal chief minister Raghubar Das. And she continued beyond her five-year tenure till July 20, 2021.
Hemant Soren, who was sworn in as chief minister in 2019, also enjoyed a cordial relation with Droupadi Murmu. Hemant alongwith his wife Kalpana Soren always touched her feet whenever he called on her at the Raj Bhawan. Incidentally, Kalpana Soren and her elder sister-in-law Sita Soren also hail from Odisha.
