A day after chief minister Shibu Soren?s U-turn on the JMM-BJP deal, he claimed on Friday that his government would complete its full five-year term, with feelers already pouring in from the opposition Congress-JVM alliance to support his government.
?I have formed the government for five years, and shall complete the tenure. Who will remove me?? Soren asked in Bokaro while backtracking from his own announcement on May 18 that the BJP and JMM would share power for 28 months each with the BJP taking over in the first phase.
Soren, who maintained that there was no deadline for his resignation, said ?the question of a change of government comes if there is no development. But now development is going on?.
Sensing their chance, the Congress-JVM alliance, which had contested the 2009 Assembly polls together, has already started inching closer to the JMM. In the 82-member (including one nominated one) Jharkhand Assembly, the Congress, JVM and JMM have a strength of 14, 11 and 18 MLAs respectively, which adds up to 43, one more than the majority.
On Friday, Congress Legislature Party leader Rajendra Singh met the chief minister and had a closed-door meeting with him for almost half an hour. This was confirmed by Congress MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad. ?If the JMM is willing to form a secular government, the Congress is ready to back it,? said Ahmad.
While JVM president Babulal Marandi lauded Soren for saying that his party ?JMM had not approved the deal? and that he ?had never agreed to tender resignation? on May 25, the Congress?s state unit president Pradeep Balmuchu said, ?As far as I know, Guruji had not taken any U-turn. It was the BJP which had announced that he would resign from the CM?s post on May 25, and not Guruji.?