The BJP on Wednesday withdrew support to the four-month-old Shibu Soren government in Jharkhand, calling Soren?s decision to vote with the UPA government on the Opposition-sponsored cut motions in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday as ?an act of betrayal?. ?We have asked deputy chief minister Raghubar Das and other ministers to meet the state governor and convey to him the BJP?s decision to withdraw support to the Soren-led government,? said Swaraj.
Asked about the BJP?s next course of action in Jharkhand, the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said that the state BJP leadership had been asked to talk to everyone concerned, and then come back to the central leadership.
A meeting of the BJP parliamentary board earlier took the decision to withdraw support to the Shibu Soren government?Jharkhand deputy chief minister Das, Yashwant Sinha and Arjun Munda were specially called to the meeting that lasted for just around 20 minutes.
After voting for the UPA government on Tuesday, Soren, however, had dinner with BJP president Nitin Gadkari at the latter?s Ferozeshah Road residence in the capital. Swaraj said that the initial argument offered by Soren for his vote against the BJP-led NDA was that ?he was suffering from Alzheimer?s? and was therefore not aware of the import of his act. BJP leaders, however, made light of the argument. ?If indeed it was due to Alzheimer?s, how did Soren remember that he had cast a negative vote, against the BJP-led NDA,? asked Swaraj.
Soren?s son, Hemant, claimed on Wednesday that the chief minister ?had erred? and that ?it was only human to err?. This argument didn?t cut much ice with the BJP brass, either.
After finding him a difficult partner when it came to dealing with the Red corridor in the Naxal-affected state, BJP leaders felt that an ?overambitious? Hemant may have kept an alternative channel open with the Congress, in trying to sew up an alternate dispensation in the state and that yesterday?s vote in favour of the Congress was, thus, ?a well thought out move?.
The issue of Soren having dinner with Gadkari at his place also came up for discussion at the BJP meeting today. While some leaders claimed that the dinner had been scheduled ?much in advance?, Swaraj quoted Gadkari as saying that ?Soren was not sticking to one line? at the dinner.
The majority view in the party?including that of LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar, Yashwant Sinha and Arjun Munda?was that the BJP?s participation in a Shibu Soren-led government in the state was now untenable. The BJP also slammed the Union government for using the CBI as a ?political tool against rivals?.
