'Hemant Soren Fears He Will Be Exposed'

'He fears that the youth tide has gone against him and he will be swept away in the next assembly election in the state.'

Anant Kumar Ojha, the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Jharkhand's Sahebganj, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com about the scenes that have been unfolding inside and outside the Jharkhand assembly since July 31 and explains why and how Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto suspended 18 BJP MLAs from the House till 2 pm on August 2.

Ojha is among the 18 suspended BJP MLAs.

The special session, which was to end on August 2, was called to allow Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren prove his majority after he was released on bail by the Jharkhand high court in a money laundering case, for which he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate, and remained in jail for five months.

Soren had resigned as chief minister following his arrest; Champai Soren assumed charge as chief minister.

Why were 18 BJP MLAs suspended by Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto?

We have been demanding answers from Chief Minister Hemant Soren revolving around his party (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha)'s promises before the 2019 assembly election that they will provide employment to 5 lakh youth every year.

Besides, those post graduates and graduates to whom the government could not provide jobs, they had promised to pay Rs 7,000 and Rs 5,000 as unemployment allowance.

They had also promised to make permanent all the contract workers in Jharkhand. We wanted to expose how inadequate and how unsuccessful the Hemant Soren has government been in fulfilling the promises it made in its 2019 election manifesto, and we had requested the speaker that we wanted to move a resolution in the House. But the speaker dismissed our fair and legislative demand in a very unceremonious fashion.

He just read our resolution and peremptorily dismissed it.

All the BJP MLAs in the House were repeatedly requesting the chief minister, who is the leader of the House, to at least answer our questions in the assembly. We wanted to initiate a discussion on the same.

When the speaker repeatedly rejected our proposals, the Leader of the Opposition Amar Kumar Bauri persisted with our request to have the chief minister reply to our motion. When all our requests and efforts paid no fruits, the LoP decided that we would not vacate the House unless the CM participated in the discussion.

What has been happening in the Jharkhand assembly since July 31?

We started our democratic and peaceful protest inside the House since yesterday afternoon after the speaker adjourned the session.

To discourage and unnerve us the electricity connection was cut off yesterday night, the air conditioner was switched off, our access to toilets and washrooms were restricted. After our protests, thankfully the washrooms were opened for use.

Roads leading to the assembly were blocked.

We were pushed out of the House into the lobby and then the marshals on duty were ordered to push all of us towards the gate.

Despite all this torture we remained unmoved and continued our agitation since 2.30 pm yesterday (July 31) and today we were unceremoniously suspended from the House till 2 pm, tomorrow (August 2, which also happens to be the last day of the last session of the Jharkhand assembly; the next session can only take place after a new government is formed in the state by December 2024; state elections are likely to be scheduled in November or December).

It was like an undeclared emergency.

What happened on Thursday?

As soon as we entered the assembly today, at the behest of the Hemant Soren government, the speaker directly read out his decision to disallow any sort of discussion in the House.

This government is deliberately running away from discussion and debate on the floor of the House because it knows it has nothing to show as far as fulfillment of their promises is concerned.

Hemant Soren fears that he will be exposed before the people of Jharkhand just before the assembly election. So, at his behest he got the speaker to suspend 18 of our MLAs despite our democratic and peaceful protests.

The JMM-Congress-RJD alliance government is purposely running away from our questions. To gag our voices, to suffocate the aspirations of the people of the state, the Hemant Soren government played out this charade of suspension.

There are allegations that BJP MLAs created a ruckus, engaged in tearing up some documents, after entering the well of the House...

Nothing of this sort happened.

What in fact happened and is more shameful is that the parliamentary affairs minister (Rameshwar Oraon) moved a counter-resolution in the House and the speaker just read it out before suspending 18 of our MLAs. Such a shameful act is unprecedented in the history of any legislative assembly or in Parliament.

Immediately after reading out from this counter-resolution, the speaker handed out his suspension orders and we were shoved out of the House by the marshals.

Why do you think Chief Minister Hemant Soren didn't want to reply to your questions?

He fears that the youth tide has gone against him and he will be swept away in the next assembly election in the state. He was just trying to delay the inevitable by running away from our questions and discussions in the House.

They can suppress our voices against their misdeeds and bad policies in the House but how will they stop us from raising issues that have assumed dangerous levels in the state?

They can't run away from answering issues like why, how and what led to change in demographics in one of our districts adjoining West Bengal.

They will have to answer why and how illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators are getting a foothold in Jharkhand and who is helping them do this.

Just today, our election campaign coordinator and Assam Chief Minister Himanata Biswa Sarma was not allowed to visit Gopinathpur in Pakur district by illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators from West Bengal.

This government adopts maun (silence) when questioned about illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingyas in Jharkhand. Their politics of appeasement has led to gradual shift in demographics of Pakur district bordering with West Bengal.

Our humble request to the Jharkhand chief minister is to answer all the burning issues troubling the state including the reason why tje tribal population in Santhal-Paraganas dropped by more than 12 per cent and how Bangladeshis and Rohingyas infiltrators are illegally swallowing tribal lands.

Fake domiciles and proofs of residence in huge numbers are being dished out to these infiltrators by the government. This government had started CID investigations into these reports since 2021 but even three years later they have not shared any report in the House.