Congress general secretary BK Hariprasad along with Congress legislature party leader Rajendra Prasad Singh and PCC president Sukhdeo Bhagat met Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday evening and discussed the seat-sharing issue. RJD State president Girinath Singh also joined them.
Coming out of the meeting which went on for over two hours at the CM’s residence , Hariprasad made it clear that the upcoming election would be fought under the leadership of the JMM. There was no sense of anxiety among the participants which suggest that things went on as planned.
later, the CM on seat sharing issue said that final call on it would be taken by the chiefs of all the partners of the coalition. “JMM chief Shibu Soren, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and RJD chief lalu Prasad would finalise the seats to be fought by the parties at an opportune time,” said Hemant Soren.
Nevertheless, talks are whether the change of stance by the Congress over leadership of the alliance is a ploy to garner more number of seats for itself in the coalitionIJ If insiders of the party are to believed the Congress’ priority is to bargain for greater number of constituencies and leave the issue of the head of the coalition to be decided later stage.
“View of the party leadership is that fragmenting the alliance is going to help ultimately the BJP and that also after ruling the State together for over one and half years. In any case Hemant Soren is leading the Government at present as his party has greater number of seats. If the situation remains the same how can the Congress claim for the leader’s post,” said a top leader privy to the development taking place in the Congress on poll related issues.
Congress in-charge of Jharkhand BK Hariprasad’s comment just after his arrival for talks on Tuesday over leadership is the indication towards the idea. Hariprasad, contrary to his party’s erstwhile stand, had hinted that the JMM would lead the alliance and obviously its leader i.e. Chief Minister Hemant Soren would head it.
“The Congress to come at par with the JMM needs to win more number of seats. It can happen if we fight over sufficient number of seats. And if we win more seats than the JMM the principle of the coalition politics says that the leader would be ours. Thus the party makes it appear that the leadership issue is a non-issue right now so that we can corner more seats for us,” said a party leader.
The ploy seems to be working as well. JMM’s general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya before the CM-Hariprasad meeting said that some concession on the number of seats could be given. “We would discuss identified seats from all the partners. JMM would look for 45-odd seats for itself but final call would be taken based of the deliberations.” Earlier the JMM claimed for as many as 50 seats leaving no room for the Congress but to go aggressive.