New Delhi, May 11: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) gaucherie in Jharkhand has prompted contempt from the Congress quarters as well as within the party ranks.
For the last 12 days, the saffron party’s flipflops in one of the most backward states would have been comical if they were not tragic for the people.
“People have a right to know what the BJP is up to in Jharkhand. In the last 12 days, the BJP has withdrawn support to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) government, ‘put on hold’ the decision to withdraw support, again threatened to withdraw support and now withdrawn the threat all over again.
They act against the person voting for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) during the cut motion, then say there will be a BJP chief minister and immediately, there is talk of a ‘rotational’ chief minister. Can anyone explain what is happening?” smirked the Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Singhvi’s sarcasm was not lost on some senior BJP leaders who were huddled in a meeting of the party’s top decision- making body ostensibly to decide on who is to be the chief minister — Raghuvar Das, Arjun Munda or Yashwant Sinha.
The meeting concluded on a predictably inconclusive note with the president Nitin Gadkari dispatching Rajnath Singh and Ananth Kumar to Ranchi to figure out what the legislators want.
Thirteen of the BJP’s total 18 legislators had, meanwhile, thronged the Capital in the hope of influencing the party leaders about their choice for the chief minister.
They were believed to have been guided by the Jharkhand assembly Speaker C. P. Singh to oppose Das’s candidature in favour of Munda.
“ Das is too close to Parimal Nathwani ( a former employee of the RIL) who is now a Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand.
We can’t accept him,” said a legislator.
So cynical were top leaders about the business of government- formation in Jharkhand that they made jokes about how long the experiment will last in the tribal state where leaders are notorious for horse- trading and switching sides.
Asked whether one of BJP’s Lok Sabha MPs — either Sinha or Munda — will resign for the purpose of occupying the chief minister’s office in Jharkhand, a senior remarked: “ We will probably not face that eventuality. In six months, the period during which a chief ministerial aspirant has to get elected to the assembly, the government will probably not last.”
But the “ negotiators”, Ananth Kumar and Rajnath Singh, were seriously going about their business.
“ There will be a BJP- led government in place in Jharkhand within seven days,” asserted Ananth Kumar.
They had already divided up the ministries among the alliance partners — four for the BJP including the chief minister’s post, four for Jharkhand with Hemant Soren as deputy chief minister, three for the All Jharkhand Students Union ( AJSU) and one for the Janata Dal ( United).
The ‘ negotiators’ said they will talk to each legislator individually to try and assess their views on who should be the chief minister.
They will then come back and give their assessment to BJP president Gadkari, who will then announce who the chief minister will be.
In the meantime, Shibu Soren, who is still the chief minister, has not said a word about whether he will resign and make way for the BJP. “ We have been assured. He will resign,” said a BJP leader confidently.
—Agencies