With Jharkhand’s outgoing chief minister and JMM chief Shibu Soren saying on Thursday that he had “no intention of resigning now” and that the JMM’s executive committee will decide on the date of resignation, the atmosphere of uncertainty has returned afresh to Jharkhand’s politics.
Sources in BJP disclosed after Mr Soren’s statement, party’s top brass in Delhi went into a huddle. The central leadership told its Jamshedpur MP Arjun Munda to clarify the issue with JMM. Mr Munda name is doing the round in the party as the frontrunner for the chief ministerial post in a BJP led government in the state. Mr Munda was assigned the task of sorting the issue of rotation of power, as suggested by JMM. Though BJP had earlier rejected it, the party later agreed on sharing of power, with both BJP and JMM ruling the government for 28 months each.
But after Mr Soren’s statement on Thursday that he would not quit his post, BJP sources said Mr Munda was asked to convey to JMM that if Mr Shibu Soren did not quit his post on May 25, as was decided earlier between the coalition partners, BJP would have to rethink on supporting a JMM-led government.
Mr Soren, who is currently in his Bokaro home to attend to the first death anniversary rituals of his eldest son Durga Soren due on Friday, gave a surprise twist to the JMM-BJP agreement when he told reporters: “I have no intentions of resigning now. Our party’s executive committee will decide the date”. Also a day earlier, while leaving Ranchi to Bokaro on Wednesday, Soren had said: “I am still the CM”.
The JMM-BJP agreement in Ranchi on Tuesday had raised hopes about the departure of the three-week-long uncertainty over the fate of Jharkhand’s five-party coalition government led by Soren. After former BJP chief minister Arjun Munda’s talks with Mr Soren, both the parties had claimed to have reached an agreement about a BJP-led government to be sworn in on May 25, when Mr Soren would resign. But Mr Soren himself had kept quiet about the date. Meanwhile, rebel JMM legislator Simon Marandi, who commands the support of eight of the party’s rebel MLAs, said he would not support a government led by Arjun Munda. This has now increased the possibilities of a split in the JMM and a likely fall of the BJP-led government in a confidence motion in the state Assembly.