Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi/Ranchi: Looking to buy time, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday put on hold its decision to withdraw support to the Shibu Soren-led government in Jharkhand.
The decision in this regard was taken in a meeting of party’s parliamentary board in the national capital.
Briefing the media after the meeting, party general secretary Ananth Kumar said, “The parliamentary board has decided to discuss the issue with our alliance partners in Jharkhand and our state leadership, till then our decision of April 28 (to withdraw support) has been put on hold.”
Kumar said that the parliamentary board under the leadership of national president Nitin Gadkari and LK Advani decided to hold further parleys in view of the letters from Shibu Soren and his son Hemant in which they requested the BJP to reconsider the decision in the ‘interest of poorer sections of people’ in the state.
The BJP general secretary also added that Shibu Soren – who voted in favour of the UPA on the cut motion – has requested them to save the people of Jharkhand from the Congress.
On being asked about the time frame by which the party will take a final call, Kumar appeared evasive and only said, “We will talk to our partners within two days.”
Clearly, there is a lack of unanimity in the party regarding to go back to on its decision to withdraw support, given the unpredictable nature of JMM’s politics.
Although, the BJP would want to form its government, but wary of the JMM’s track record of not keeping its word; simply put, the party doesn’t want to emerge as a loser in after the current round of political wrangling.
JMM’s wish-list
As per reports, the JMM wants Deputy Chief Minister’s post for Hemant besides preferring a tribal leader from the BJP as CM.
However, the BJP has refuted that JMM has asked for Dy CM’s post.
Regarding its choice for the CM post, the party is keeping mum at the moment. There are three main contenders - former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, current Deputy CM Raghubar Das, and tribal leader Arjun Munda.
But given the JMM’s preference for a trbal leader, it is being assumed that Arjun Munda will pip others to the post, despite his past failures to lead the party to victory.
Yesterday the BJP had twice cancelled an appointment with the Governor--the first in the morning and the second in the evening.
A delegation of BJP MLAs was scheduled to call on the Governor at 11:00 am, which was postponed to 7:00 pm and thereafter cancelled.
"As our discussions over the sensitive issue remain inconclusive, our delegation could not meet the Governor for a second time," BJP`s Jharkhand unit General Secretary Ganesh Mishra said in Ranchi.
