No senior central Congress leader will go to Jharkhand to attend the oath-taking ceremony of Hemant Soren as the Chief Minister indicating a cautious approach being adopted by the party towards it alliance Government with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the State.
AICC general secretary in-charge of Jharkhand BK Hariprasad will instead go to Chhattisgarh on July 11 to participate in the Kalash Yatra from the village of former PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel who was killed in the May 25 Maoist attack.
"This is a jugad Government which is being formed after much deliberations and has not come from elections," Congress sources said when asked why no central leader is planning to go to Ranchi for the oath taking ceremony which will be held in the next few days.
The Congress, which after initial reluctance has decided to become part of the JMM-led coalition Government primarily to form alliance for the lok Sabha polls, is also showing its lack of enthusiasm by deciding that initially only one minister of the party will take oath along with Hemant. The four other Ministers from the party's quota of five will take oath only after Hemant proves his majority on the floor of the State Assembly, sources said.
Though RJD will have two Ministers in the coalition Government, the Congress has kept a safe distance asking Hemant to do all the negotiations. The Congress, which is keen to have alliance with Janata Dal (United) in Bihar for the lok Sabha polls, does not want to give any indication of siding with the RJD as it would adversely affect the possibility of its alliance with JD(U) for lok Sabha polls.
The Congress, which bargained hard to get 10 out of 14 lok Sabha seats to contest from the State, has also got assurance from JMM of alliance in some other states where JMM president Shibu Soren has influence among tribal population.