Legislators of the ruling coalition partners in Jharkhand expressed solidarity with the Hemant Soren government on Wednesday and said the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader will continue as the chief minister.
After a meeting in Ranchi to discuss the current political scenario in light of the Enforcement Directorate's summons to Soren, the lawmakers said they stand united and firmly support Soren, assuring that there is no threat to the current government.
Mithilesh Thakur, a senior JMM leader who holds the Drinking Water and Sanitation portfolio, said Soren will continue as the CM and that JMM will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha and state assembly elections under his leadership.
The meeting was chaired by Soren himself.
Aalamgir Aalam, the Congress legislature wing leader and Rural Development Minister, said the people have given a mandate to this government for five years, and it will complete its full tenure.
"Soren will continue as chief minister. We are in the alliance and will continue to work together. There were no talks regarding a change of leadership," he said.
Asked about the sudden resignation of JMM's Gandey legislator Sarfaraz Ahmad, he said, "We always keep an alternative open, and this was part of the same strategy."
Another legislator said, "The MLAs of the coalition parties are united, and there is no threat to the current government. There was no talk of any change in the leadership."
Soren, the 48-year-old executive president of JMM, has been in the eye of a political storm since the Enforcement Directorate summoned him in connection with its probe in an office-of-profit case.
A statement from the chief minister's secretariat said, 'An important meeting of ministers and MLAs of the ruling coalition was held today under the chairmanship of Soren. The latest political situation was specifically discussed in this meeting. The chief minister gave his views on the entire incident and informed everyone about it. ... All the MLAs expressed their full confidence in the chief minister.'
'In any situation, all of them (MLAs of the coalition parties) are completely united, and they will thwart any conspiracy against the chief minister and the state government,' the statement added.
Sources in the chief minister's office had told PTI that the deadline for Soren to reply to the ED's summons will end on January 5.
The summons, the seventh one, was issued in December last year.
Soren has skipped the previous six summonses by the ED and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre of using central agencies to destabilize his democratically elected government.
The Election Commission had sent a letter in August 2022 to the then governor of Jharkhand, Ramesh Bais, which is believed to have recommended his disqualification as an MLA as a mining lease given to him was renewed during his tenure as the chief minister.
However, neither Bais nor his successor C P Radhakrishnan opened it.
Meanwhile, Soren has dismissed speculations that his wife Kalpana will contest from Gandey assembly constituency, which was vacated barely a year before the November-December state election.
Soren has termed speculations that his wife will be anointed the chief minister as a 'complete imagination' of the opposition BJP.
"There is not an iota of truth in the speculations," he said.
The speculations were triggered by the ED's latest summons to Soren coupled with the sudden resignation by JMM MLA from Gandey, Sarfaraz Ahmad, on Monday.
"The possibility of my wife contesting any election in the near future is completely an imagination of the BJP ... The speculation about handing over reins to her by me is a fabric woven by the BJP to build a false narrative," the chief minister told PTI on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the opposition BJP in the state sent a letter to Governor CP Radhakrishnan urging him to 'save the state from a constitutional crisis amidst the political turmoil maneuvered at the hands of Soren'.
Jharkhand BJP president and former chief minister Babulal Marandi mentioned in the letter, "With great concern and distress, I am writing this letter to your Excellency to bring to your kind notice the recent development which has occurred in the State of Jharkhand which would lead into constitutional crisis.
"There has been wide speculation as would be evident from the reports from various newspapers and as well as recent development of an hon'ble member of legislative assembly Shri Sarfaraz Ahmed tendering his resignation from his seat Gandey and the hon'ble speaker accepting the same."
It has widely been published in various newspapers that present chief minister Soren may resign and a non-MLA shall be elected as leader of JMM legislative party and in turn would be the leader of the alliance and he/she shall present his claim to form the government before the Governor, the letter mentioned.
'The same claim if made by a non-MLA to become the chief minister would be wholly unconstitutional and unlawful claim....it is humbly prayed, in the event of situation and in the interest of state, His Excellency may not like to accede to any such request which is completely in violation of provisions of the Constitution of India,' Marandi wrote.
The saffron party has claimed that Ahmad was made to quit so that Kalpana Soren could contest from Gandey in case of any eventuality in connection with the ED summonses.
The coalition has 47 members -- 29 from the JMM, 17 from the Congress, and one from the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
The opposition BJP has 26 members, and the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) Party has three.
The Nationalist Congress Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist have one lawmaker each, apart from two Independents.
