Dust has started to settle on Tuesday for the race for Rajya Sabha after the BJP announcing its second candidate a day before. Though the party's treasurer Mahesh Poddar filed his nomination on the last day hoping for any breakup in the Opposition camp, the JMM got vital support of the Congress in the end. The move has taken away the fizz more or less ahead of the June 11 polling.
However, the JMM that had already named its youth wing leader and youngest son of party chief Shibu Soren as candidate for the Upper House had to cross the bridge more than half to get Congress' backing. First party's executive president Hemant Soren remained in constant touch with PCC president Sukhdeo Bhagat and party's legislative body leader Alamgir Alam. When no breakthrough came he even drove down to a hotel where Congress legislators were in huddle seeking their support.
leaving the bargain in the middle, the JMM leaders assembled at the Assembly for nomination filing. Basant Soren's first set of nomination did not have any signatory from the Congress and Hemant Soren, along with Nalin Soren, Ravindra Nath Mahto, Deepak Birua, Joba Majhi, Niral Purty, Jai Prakash Bhai Patel, Yogendra Prasad, Amit Mahto and Anil Murmu fulfilled the proposers' quota. Arup Chatterjee of Marxist-Coordination was also present on the occasion.
When asked about this, Hemant played it down. "We have talked to the Congress and extending support is their internal matter. We have fielded our candidate and now would go for the result," he said and bashed the BJP for promoting horse trading by pitching another candidate into fray. Basant expressed hope that the Congress would fall in line.
The turnaround came later in the day after senior AICC leader BK Hariprasad flew down to Ranchi and went straight into huddle with party's legislators. This prompted Basant to file his second set of nomination once again before Returning Officer Binay Kumar Singh. This time, the nomination paper of the JMM nominee figured Sukhdeo Bhagat, Alamgir Alam, Badal Patralekh, Devender Singh and Irfan Ansari. "Our effort is to stop communal forces from winning both the seats. The BJP is fanning horse trading which was needed to be stopped," said Bhagat briefly.
With this, arithmetic for the election looks very clear even through the BJP managed to bring some single member parties into its fold. Bhanu Pratap Sahi, a jail bird few days before and now out on bail, along with Geeta Koda turned surprise proposers of Mahesh Poddar on Tuesday.
When asked about the reasons behind, the Navjawan Sangharsh Morcha leader said, "In politics, reasons are not let known to the others. I am not under pressure."
Worth mentioning here is that Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday had attended birthday party of Geeta Koda's daughters whereas BSP's Kushwaha Shivpujan Mehta had given his vote to BJP nominee MJ Akbar on the last occasion.
Besides the two outsiders, Radha Krishna Kishore, Randheer Singh, JP Verma, Raj Sinha, Anant Ojha, Amar Kumar Bauri, laxman Tudu and Ramchandra Sais (AJSU) were the other proposers of Poddar who claimed for victory. "I am fighting to win. We have 47 MlAs and likely to get support of others in the name of nation building," said Poddar, a qualified mechanical engineer and trader by profession who has also served as FJCCI president in 1996. He also denounced the term 'horse trading' which is being feared to come into play.
The BJP-AJSU combine with 47 votes and couple of more from the 'single members' may not be able to upset the JMM's apple cart. Indication are that CPI-Ml's Raj Kumar Yadav and two-member JVM would abstain from voting which would bring down magic figure further down from current 28. However party strategists termed it a ploy also to keep its folks together, assert its swelled strength before all and oblige a party old timer at one go.
Taking along its own 19, seven of the Congress and few other 'secular' faces, one seat of the Upper House is looking well within the JMM's reach. The saffron party has already fielded Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi for one seat who moreover filed another set of papers on Tuesday.