Ranchi/New Delhi, May 3: Dissident JMM legislators are making clandestine efforts to form a government without the BJP while the party leadership is urging its ally to allow chief minister Shibu Soren a “respectable exit” by allowing him to head the five-party government till June 30.
One section of the BJP wants to take a final call by the end of the week, while another is ready to keep it hanging till June 30 since it fears any precipitate action could “see the state slip out of its grasp”. The BJP leadership has sent a message to the JMM that it wants joint parleys with both Shibu Soren and his son Hemant at the earliest.
Two senior JMM legislators, Teklal Mahto and Simon Marandi, secretively met coalition partner AJSU’s head Sudesh Mahto, the deputy chief minister, at his Ranchi residence Monday morning in efforts to form a government without the BJP. The two, who took pains to avoid the media, are bitterly opposed to handing the JMM leadership over to Hemant Soren and claim they have the support of eight of the JMM’s 18 MLAs. The two leaders turned into dissidents after being denied Cabinet berths when the current government was formed four months ago, and are working to thwart the leadership’s plan to let Shibu Soren continue as CM till June 30 and then let the BJP lead the government with JMM support. The two leaders did not attend a meeting of MLAs convened by Shibu Soren on Sunday.
Other sources said at least 10 JMM legislators were supporting the efforts to keep the BJP out of power, and were trying to cobble together a new government comprising the breakaway JMM faction in an alliance with the Congress, Babulal Marandi’s JVM, AJSU, RJD and some Independent MLAs.
“The two dissident JMM legislators met AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto with this plan in mind. It looks pretty risky at this moment and involves several hurdles, but it is certainly not an impossible proposition,” said a JMM legislator who sought anonymity.