Ahead of the potential trust vote to prove majority in the Jharkhand Assembly, Chief Minister Hemant Soren exuded confidence saying the opposition, which is BJP in the state, will be “trapped in its own trap” soon.
As Jharkhand UPA MLAs prepared to return to Ranchi from Raipur to attend Monday’s special session in the Assembly, CM Soren said, “The opposition will be trapped in the traps they have laid for us.”
Jharkhand has been witnessing a political crisis since a petition by the BJP seeking Soren’s disqualification from the Assembly in an office of profit case was filed and the Election Commission (EC) sent its decision to Governor Ramesh Bais on August 25.
Though the EC’s decision has not yet been made official, there is a buzz that the poll panel has recommended the chief minister’s disqualification as an MLA.
The ruling UPA has asserted that disqualification of the CM as an MLA will not affect the government, as the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition enjoys an absolute majority in the 81-member House.
The JMM, the largest party, has 30 MLAs, the Congress 18 legislators, and the RJD one. The main opposition BJP has 26 MLAs in the House.
Soren’s party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) believes that the BJP may make a serious attempt to poach MLAs from the party and also from the ally Congress in a bid to topple the government in a manner similar to Maharashtra.
To ringfence the legislators in a safe haven, as many as 32 MLAs of the ruling coalition were on August 30 taken to a resort in Raipur, the capital of Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh.
Four of them, however, returned to take part in a cabinet meeting held on Thursday, in which it was decided that a special session of the Jharkhand Assembly will be convened on September 5.
