Instead of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, the Election Commission of India is believed to have sent its opinion to the Governor regarding the “disqualification” of his younger brother and MLA from Dumka, Basant Soren, as a member of the State Legislative Assembly.
According to news agency Asian News International (ANI), the commission sent its opinion to Governor Ramesh Bais on Friday regarding the disqualification of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA under Section 9(A) of Representation of People Act, 1951.
The report said the commission had concluded its hearing on August 29 on a plea by Mr. Bais seeking Mr. Basant Soren’s disqualification from the House in connection with a mining lease case.
The Governor will now have to take a decision of the opinion received from the commission, the ANI report said.
Mr. Basant had recently hit the headlines for his controversial comment that he visited Delhi to buy “undergarments”.
“I had run out of undergarments, so I went to Delhi to purchase them. I get them from there. The political crisis is a normal thing and it keeps happening,” he said.
Mr. Basant was among the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) legislators who were shifted first to a guest house in Khunti and then to a resort at Raipur in Chhattisgarh to prevent any poaching attempts by the Opposition BJP during the political crisis that had broken out in Jharkhand recently.
Politics in Jharkhand had been filed with suspense and speculation about the imminent fall of the UPA government led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren, following reports of the commission recommending his disqualification as an MLA for extending a mining lease in his and Mr. Basant’s name while holding the Mines portfolio in 2019.
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To ward off any poaching attempt by the BJP, some of the UPA MLAs were even shifted to resort in Chattisgarh. On September 5, the Soren government proved its majority on the floor of the House, with 48 MLAs supporting him and the Opposition BJP staging a walkout with a zero vote marked by Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto. The Governor, however, has maintained studied silence over Mr. Hemant Soren’s disqualification case.
The BJP, earlier, had sought action against Mr. Hemant Soren and his brother under the Representation of People Act for co-owning a mining firm to which he had awarded the lease of a stone chips mineand not disclosing it in their poll affidavit.
The ruling UPA has the support of 49 MLAs in 81-member Jharkhand Assembly. The magic figure to form the government is 41. The JMM has 30 legislators, while ally Congress has 18 (three of them were recently arrested with huge cash in their vehicle in West Bengal and sent to jail) and one from the Rashtriya Janata Dal. The Opposition BJP has 26 MLAs with the support of two from the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) and two others.
State Congress president Rajesh Rathor said that “such reports have been coming in Jharkhand since last several days that ECI has recommended this and recommended that but from where such reports come in and to whom is yet to be known”. Several JMM leaders too echoed similar sentiments.
