The continuing stalemate between the alliance partners JMM and Congress may take a new turn with BK Hariprasad’s two-day visit beginning on Tuesday. The Congress national general secretary and party’s in-charge of Jharkhand is likely to go straight into huddle with Chief Minister Hemant Soren hours after arriving.
Sources in the Congress said that the party was in no mood to delay the things any further and even resorted to aggressive posturing by holding public meetings in Santhal Pargana, the known backyard of the partner JMM last week.
“The meeting held between the CM and Congress leaders in Delhi had laid down in clear terms to him that come with a timeframe to resolve the seat sharing issue which they did not. This prompted the Congress to organise meetings in the sitting seats of the JMM in the Santhal Pargana region and got satisfactory response there. Now they have approached us afresh,” said a top Congress leader ahead of Hariprasad’s visit on Monday.
The probable meeting between the leaders is likely to finalise the seat distribution which also involve smaller parties joining the alliance at the later stage. “It is completely unacceptable to us that the JMM puts forth claim on 50 seats and project Hemant Soren as Chief Minister. It has not been practice of the Congress to go into polls by projecting anyone as CM. The meeting would discuss all the issues in clear terms,” said the leader. However, aggressive gesture of the Congress has also opened up the JMM a bit more. The party spokesperson Binod Pandey hinted that talks with the Babulal Marandi-led party JVM was possible if any such proposal comes to it. JVM is facing a tough time as host of its leaders and MlAs are jettisoning it to join others. latest name into already long list is of vice president Gautam Sagar Rana who left the party along with Baldev Das and Pramod Vidyarthi on Monday.