RANCHI: Amid speculation on Hemant Soren rolling the dice for Plan B if the Enforcement Directorate were to arrest him in a land scam case, the Jharkhand chief minister told his legislative party meeting on Wednesday that he had no intention to resign.
The speculation on Plan B was that Soren was grooming his wife Kalpana to step into his shoes if the ED arrests him and he had to resign. When senior party legislator Sarfaraz Ahmed vacated his safe Gandey constituency just a few days ago, it was seen as an attempt to let her enter the assembly by winning the seat. However, Soren described it as a figment of the BJP’s imagination.
Be that as it may, state BJP president Babulal Marandi wrote to Governor C P Radhakrishnan requesting him to stop a non-MLA (Kalpana) from taking oath as chief minister if Soren resigns. Citing several court judgments, Marandi said there can be no by-election at Gandey since less than one year of the fifth Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha’s tenure is left.
As for the MLAs, they said they were all united and would not let any conspiracy succeed in the state. The brave talk notwithstanding, the ED seemed to be running rings around Soren as it raided 12 locations belonging to those close to the CM — including his press advisor Abhishek Prasad ‘Pintu’ — in Ranchi and Rajasthan in a money laundering case related to illegal mining.
Besides, multiple premises of IAS officer and Sahibganj Deputy Commissioner Ramnivas Yadav, architect Vinod Kumar, Khudaniya Brothers (Sahibganj), former Bihar MLA Pappu Yadav (Deoghar), DSP Rajendra Dubey (Hazaribagh), constable Awdhesh Kumar, and Abhay Saraogi (Kolkata).
MLAs confident
MLAs exuded confidence that Soren will complete his term. “Soren is our CM and will remain in future also,” said Congress MLA Pradeep Yadav