Internal tensions within the Congress party came to the surface on Saturday after the Cabinet expansion of the Champai Soren government when legislators in Jharkhand threatened to boycott the upcoming Budget sessions if serving Ministers from their party were not replaced with new faces.
On Friday, eight MLAs were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers; three of them — Rameshwar Oraon, Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh — were from the Congress. One Congress MLA, Alamgir Alam, had already taken oath with the Chief Minister on February 2.
Miffed over the issue, the rebel Congress MLAs gathered at a private hotel in Ranchi to discuss further strategies. The MLAs present at the hotel were Irfan Ansari, Umashankar Akela, Deepika Pandey Singh, Anup Singh, Sona Ram Sinku, Bhushan Bada, Rajesh Kachchap and Amba Prasad.
Mr. Ansari demanded that they be replaced and that as many as 12 MLAs backed this demand.
He said that the right feedback was not being given to the Central leadership and if this were to continue, Rahul Gandhi’s would never come true.
“Our few leaders are misleading the Central leadership and not giving the right feedback on the ground due to which there is strong resentment among the legislators. Jharkhand Congress in-charge Ghulam Ahmad Mir yesterday gave us assurance that new faces would be inducted in the Cabinet but it did not happen. It is not my demand but every Congress worker wants [the change] because the party is suffering due to their working style. If JMM can change their Ministers, why not the Congress party,” asked Mr. Ansari, who represented the Jamtara Assembly constituency.
“We are 12 MLAs and we all have decided not to participate in the upcoming Budget session unless the four Congress Ministers are not replaced with new faces,” he added.
Expressing anger over the issue, Mr. Akela said, “Lok Sabha election is around the corner and our leader Rahul Gandhi is already doing pada yatra across India. In Jharkhand, there are 14 Lok Sabha seats and we are bothered about how many seats we will be able to win. If these four Ministers continue, we will not be able to win a single seat in Jharkhand. Their performance as Ministers is very poor. They should be immediately replaced with new faces.”
Mahagama MLA Mr. Deepika Pandey Singh said that the 12 of them had given it in writing that they wanted the four Ministers replaced.
Khijri MLA Mr. Kachchap stressed that people in his constituency were asking why the Congress party retained the four Ministers. “It has become difficult to face our people in the constituency and now it is high time to replace them. We want this matter to be resolved by Rahul Gandhi and K.C. Venugopal ji,” he added.
Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Basant Soren, the younger brother of former Chief Minister Hemant Soren, rushed to the hotel to meet the legislators. When journalists asked him about their disappointment over repeating the same Congress MLAs as Ministers, Mr. Basant Soren claimed that there was no resentment among the party members.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led alliance in the State has 47 MLAs — 29 from JMM, 17 from Congress and one from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). According to sources in the Congress, the rebel MLAs planned to go to New Delhi to register a formal complaint before the Central leadership.
Mr. Champai Soren and Jharkhand Congress Chief Rajesh Thakur on Saturday reached New Delhi to meet party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday to discuss seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls.
