Despite withdrawing support to Jharkhand’s Shibu Soren government and asking its ministers to resign, the BJP appears still hopeful of reaching rapprochement with its wily ally JMM and reviving their coalition government so as to avoid imposition of President’s Rule.
Ever since their withdrawal of support on Monday, Jharkhand’s BJP leaders have met JMM leaders for informal talks several times in what is being described by party sources as “unfailing efforts to save the government”.
Both the parties, which suffered heavy losses in the Assembly polls in December last year, are uneasy about the prospect of President’s Rule or another poll in such a short span.
Mr Arjun Munda, the BJP national general secretary and former chief minister who was a frontrunner for the post of the next chief minister after Mr Soren’s promised resignation, met both Mr Soren and his son Hemant Soren, leader of the JMM legislature party, a day after the BJP withdrew support. Mr Munda drove down to Mr Shibu Soren’s residence in Morabadi in Ranchi on Tuesday morning and held talks with the father-son duo for over an hour before leaving for New Delhi, said BJP sources.
Despite protests from a section of BJP leaders, most notably from former Union minister Yashwant Sinha and deputy chief minister Raghubar Das, Mr Munda reportedly tried to impress upon Mr Shibu Soren the value of stepping down and submitting a letter of support of JMM legislators to the BJP for resumption of their coalition government. But Mr Soren, sources said, was indecisive, particularly because of the opposition by half of the JMM’s 18 legislators to a change of guard in the government.
Mr Hemant Soren had also met Mr Munda a few hours before the BJP leaders met governor M.O.H. Farook on Monday to submit the letter of withdrawal of support. JMM sources said Soren Junior requested Mr Munda to refrain from withdrawing support.