The saga of disqualification and other stories

BJP struggles to collect evidence against Marandi for disqualification

Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi Monday, November 3, 2008

The State BJP that sought disqualification of the deputy Chief Minister, Stephen Marandi from the Speaker of Jharkhand State Assembly, now finds it tough to pursue the case due to the lack of evidence.

The party is still looking for the original paper of case filed by the party MLA, Chandresh Oraon. Interestingly, even Oraon is not aware of the 'where about' of that paper. The sources close to Oraon said that the MLA who signed the original case paper as per the instruction of a senior leader of the party was himself not aware of the merit of the case.

Oraon who originally filed case against the Minister under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution had to face criticism by the Speaker, Alamgir Alam who during the hearing of the case last time, not only asked Orano to come with 'solid evidence' within 15 days but also passed a pointed instruction not to waste the precious time of the court by bringing such cases having no merit. He even said that he could dismiss the petition against if the required evidences in the form of documents were not produced.

During the hearing, Oraon could not produce the evidence of the association of Marandi with the Jharkhand Vikash Morcha. However, he claimed having such news clips which clearly suggest Marandi's alleged violation.

"One should not file cases on the basis of news paper reports which are not admissible in general and are not treated as a primary evidence and record", the Speaker said during the hearing.

Concerned over the remark of the Speaker, the president of the State BJP, Pashupatinath Singh has instructed the media cell of the party to collect evidences against Marandi. Singh even criticised the way in which the BJP approached Speaker without sufficient homework.

According to the party sources, the media cell has been instructed to scan the newspaper of the last two years to collect newspapers reports to substantiate its case. The said exercise came as a nightmare for the media cell that however managed scanty evidences. Requesting anonymity, a senior party leader confided that the BJP was still not confident about the evidences that are only in form of published news.

The media cell is learnt to have submitted the cuttings of published news items. Although both Orano and Singh confidently said that the party would move to the court of speaker with sufficient documentary evidences, but the facts remain party is in position to produce.