BJP pulls out of Soren govt. in Jharkhand

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s four-month honeymoon with Shibu Soren ended abruptly today with the party withdrawing support to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led government, a day after the Jharkhand Chief Minister sided with the UPA in the Lok Sabha.

A meeting of the BJP top brass, headed by party chief Nitin Gadkari, decided to withdraw support immediately giving indications that the new experiment in Ranchi has floundered.

“The BJP Parliamentary Board has decided to withdraw support immediately to the Shibu Soren government. He (Soren) has behaved in a very dubious manner and voted with the government during the cut motion. BJP has taken very serious note of this betrayal and dubious conduct,” senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar told reporters here.

New equations in Jharkhand appeared to be in the offing with AICC in—charge of the state K. Keshav Rao saying, “There is nobody untouchable in politics....(We were) never averse to it (forming a government with JMM). After all we contested the election there to form a government. In politics there is no last word.”

BJP leader and Jharkhand Deputy Chief Minister Raghubar Das will submit a letter to the state governor withdrawing support to the JMM-led government later in the day.

“The Deputy Chief Minister and all BJP ministers in the Jharkhand government will also submit their resignations to the governor,” Mr. Kumar said.

Mr. Kumar, who along with former party president Rajnath Singh was part of the negotiations with Soren just four months ago to form a government, refused to comment on whether BJP’s coalition experiment has failed in the state.

With elections to the state legislature throwing up a hung assembly, BJP had formed a coalition government with Soren.

In the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, BJP and JMM have 18 seats each, Congress 14, RJD 5, JVM 11, ASJU 5, JD(U) 2, CPI(ML) 1 and others and independents six. One member is nominated