Internal rifts in Jharkhand’s ruling BJP-JMM-AJSU alliance came to the fore on Thursday, a day before the Lok Sabha bypoll in Jamshedpur in which all three ruling allies are contesting against one another in a bid to win the prestigious constituency.
After discreetly avoiding all direct attacks on the electorally rival allies during a fortnight-long campaign, deputy chief minister and JMM general secretary Hemant Soren and Mathura Prasad Mahto, revenue minister and senior JMM leader, made statements to the media that immediately fuelled speculation in political circles about the 10-month-old coalition government’s fate after the bypoll’s outcome.
While the young Soren, son of JMM founder-president Shibu Soren, said his party would be the least affected “if the government stands or falls,” Mahto revived the initial, complex agreement between the BJP and the JMM about each party heading the state government for 28 months each. While some analysts said these “ill-timed statements” could have been be aimed at polarising voters in Jamshedpur for an expected advantage to the JMM, others said fresh seeds for an imminent clash between the two major ruling allies were just sown.
“It would make no difference for us if the government stands or falls. This is not a pre-poll alliance. It was stitched up to form a government to save Jharkhand from repeated spells of President’s Rule. There was no alternative then,” said Hemant Soren, whose last bid to become CM had badly backfired and ended with the BJP heading the government under Arjun Munda. Mr Soren was answering a question on the likely impact of the keenly-contested bypoll’s outcome on the government’s future.
Mr Mahto said: “The JMM would seek to head the state government at the end of 28 months as per the agreement”. By bringing out this initial agreement, almost pushed to the backburner in recent months, the senior JMM leader reportedly hinted at his party’s unhappiness over the manner in which the BJP pressurised it in 2010 and the JMM’s ambition to head the coalition government.