New Delhi: The BJP central leadership on Tuesday
tried to come to grips with the defiance by its ministers in
the Shibu Soren government in Jharkhand who attended a cabinet
meet despite instructions not to do so.
"The decision of the central BJP leadership that our
members in the Shibu Soren government will not attend the
cabinet meeting could not be conveyed to the concerned leaders
on time," Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj
said.
A meeting of the central leaders, including party
president Nitin Gadkari, Swaraj, L K Advani and Leader of the
Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley was held yesterday
evening to take note of the defiance and decide what action
should be taken against the erring ministers.
Meanwhile, BJP remained firm on its stand that JMM should
get letters of support from all its 18 MLAs before the party
went ahead with forming a government.
"A decision either way--to go ahead with government
formation or to withdraw support to Soren--is likely by
Thursday," a senior BJP leader said.
He said the party was not open to any other JMM offer-
like continuing with Soren as Chief Minister- and may prefer
to withdraw support in case JMM Legislature Party leader
Hemant Soren failed to bring on board all his party MLAs to
back a BJP-led government.
Though BJP leaders were in touch with their Jharkhand
unit as well as JMM, no formal meeting was held by the top
leadership here today.
PTI
