NEW DELHI: The Jharkhand government is on shaky ground as coalition partners Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Congress are caught in a face-off over cornering the lone Rajya Sabha seat in the offing.
Congress general secretary in charge of Jharkhand Avinash Pande has reportedly asked his MLAs not to meet Chief Minister Hemant Soren for the next two months for building pressure on the JMM leader to heed to the demands of the grand old party.
But, Congress MLAs are not happy with Pande’s order. In the 81-member Assembly, Congress has 16 MLAs, four of whom are ministers. These ministers and some legislatorss, have questioned Pande’s call saying it would be difficult for them to function without meeting the chief minister. The MLAs want the party leadership to sit down with Soren to sort out issues.
The Congress legislators said that Soren is very upset with Pande’s call to boycott him. He has reportedly said that if the Congress does not want to deal with him, it was free to withdraw support and end the relationship. Soren wants the Congress to stop taking adversarial position and follow coalition dharma by trying to resolve issues through dialogue.
Boycott was not a solution but a bigger problem, the chief minister asserted said. The Congress leadership is miffed with Soren for what it terms as his “continued attempts to sideline the party by refusing to accept reasonable demands, and address concerns.”
Pande, meanwhile, holds a grudge against the CM for not meeting him twice during his visits to Ranchi. The two parties have been at loggerheads right from the day they won election in the state as pre-poll allies. The Congress claims it was denied the post of Deputy Chief Minister and Deputy Speaker when the government was formed in the state.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha also laid claim when the first Rajya Sabha vacancy came by insisting on sending party patriarch Shibu Soren to the Upper House. The ruling alliance now has another Rajya Sabha seat coming its way. And the two partners do not want to let go off the opportunity to get it.
Under pressure from party dissidents seeking renomination, the Congress leadership has been trying to mop up every possible seat from across the country. The party is in desperate need to shore up its dwindling strength in the Upper House of Parliament. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, on the other hand, says it has 30 MLAs in the Assembly and only six ministers, while the Congress has four ministers with only 16 legislators.