With the BJP seeking to induct its Jharkhand ally JMM into the NDA fold, Sibu Soren’s party has witnessed sharp divisions of opinions. Most JMM leaders want the party’s alliance with the BJP to remain restricted only to Jharkhand and only for the present Assembly’s tenure.
The BJP had started persuading JMM supremo and MP Sibu Soren and his senior party colleagues to formally join the NDA days before Arjun Munda was sworn in as chief minister of the coalition government. Sources said Mr Soren, who had refused the BJP’s offer the last time in December 2009, had agreed this time but wanted the formation of Jharkhand’s coalition government to be completed first.
Before leaving for Nagpur with Mr Munda and deputy chief minister Hemant Soren a day after the swearing-in, AJSU leader and deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahto had said it was likely that both JMM and AJSU would join the NDA and that a “formal decision and formal announcement” would be made soon.
JMM leader and former health minister Baidyanath Ram said the JMM joining the NDA should not surprise anyone. “It is natural. We and the BJP are like-minded parties and the JMM was earlier in the NDA. But a final decision would be taken by Gurujee (Sibu Soren),” he said.
But two senior JMM leaders — former deputy chief minister Sudhir Mahto and Mathura Mahto have strongly protested against the idea of the JMM joining the NDA. “We are in alliance only in Jharkhand and we will let it remain so,” said Sudhir Mahto. Mathura Mahto indicated that the JMM-BJP alliance may be over with the expiry of the present Assembly’s tenure in 2014 if the Munda government completes the full term.
The JMM currently has only two MPs in the Lok Sabha — Sibu Soren and jailed Maoist leader Kameshwar Baitha. If the JMM joins the NDA, the number of parties in the BJP-led national coalition would rise to 10. The JMM is likely to discuss the issue in its two-day state executive meeting beginning on September 20 in Dumka, said sources.