BJP bamboozled over JMM rotational rhetoric, Congress secretly smiles
Congress secretly watches JMM move to fish in troubled water
VIJAY DEO JHA
RANCHI
To report Chief Minister Arjun Munda and his coalition government these days is to often wonder whether he is clueless about his important bedfellow, the JMM, in trying for a secret affair with the Congress.
JMM has started quarreling with the architecture and arrangements of power sharing in the coalition government saying that they agreed and signed an understanding to share CM’s post on rotational basis: 28 months each.
Couple of days back JMM Chief Shibu Soren fired fresh though familiar salvo of rotational formula and threatened to pull out of the government if CM post is not handed over the JMM. His son and deputy CM in the government, Hemant Soren, quickly but partially disputed senior Soren’s ‘casual’ remark expressing his unawareness about any such agreement during government formation negotiation in 2010. Rebuffed publicly by senior Soren for overriding his jurisdiction as party president, junior Soren came with fresh clarification and commitment to toe his father’s line if he (senior Soren) wishes disengagement from the BJP and the government.
The BJP's riposte to such revelation has been blunt. State BJP president Dineshnanda Goswami disputed Soren’s claim of a written agreement on Thursday. State BJP in-charge and national organizational secretary Dharmendra Pradhan has already stated party’s position over dispute: “Munda to continue till the government lasts.”
Soren is known for making and retracting such statements in the past, often to exert pressure on the government to extract few concessions. But this time he has jangled nerves of BJP bosses who tut-tutted Soren sounding conspiratorial this time. “We are not aware of any such agreement. We will certainly negotiate over this matter. But we are quite unsure,” a senior BJP leader said. If there exists such an agreement, then Munda will be completing 28 months in the office in January, next year.
There exists a section in the JMM that is nudging Soren to sunder the alliance mainly consisting of Disgruntled leaders elements long been shunted on the flank in the coalition government arrangements have jumped to the core of the debate frantically setting agenda of fresh political turmoil. “No logic left now to continue in the government,” JMM MLA Simon Marandi said. And the right time is widely suspected after Dipawali festival is over. This group has often been raising bogey of irreparable loss of party’s core constituents including tribal and Muslim if the party continues allying with BJP.
Behaving presumingly like an uneasy bedfellow who picks points to quarrel for a divorce the JMM has come with catalogues of complaints which read like charge-sheet which are often flimsy.
Sample these: Munda runs administration and decides affair of the state sans JMM. “Even he was in the bed for three months following May 9 chopper crash, he continued running the government whereas JMM wished him to allow junior Soren to act on his behalf till he recovers,” said a senior party MLA.
“He never refers to us in the matter of governance, not even in the remove of privacy; he gives us cause of anxiety,” he said.
The Congress will watch JMM-BJP tussle silently till it turns into a full blown skirmish. A top JMM insider confided about junior Soren’s recent Delhi trip to explore future political arrangements.
Theories tactile, unattributed and speculative are running like viral fever which even BJP leaders did not dispute that the Congress may employ dirty trick departments to disturb and dislodge the government anytime after Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assembly elections. The Congress needs an ally in Jharkhand to fight next general election and Soren is the only option left. Soren is caught in a couple of legal cobwebs—more may be in store, and Congress knows how to make best use out of these. Owing to Soren’s precarious and opportunistic political position even BJP leaders refrain to believe that he spoke casually this time too.
