Having turned an approver in the infamous JMM MPs' bribery case, nailing host of high and mighty, including then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and Shibu Soren, parting ways with the JMM, later joining the BJP, JD(U) and AJSU and now joining hands with Guruji, politics has come full circle for former JMM MP Shailendra Mahto.
Mahto, along with Shibu Soren, Simon Marandi and Suraj Mandal, was among the accused of taking bribe to vote and save the minority Narasimha Rao Government in 1993.
Mahto had turned approver and gave the crucial evidence in the bribery case to the court in which former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao was convicted.
The other three JMM MPs, however, had been acquitted of the charge of accepting bribe after a Supreme Court verdict, which held that the MPs' action enjoyed immunity under Article 105 of the Constitution.
The apex court, however, had said that those accused 'bribe-givers' in the JMM MPs pay-off case could not claim immunity from prosecution under Article 105 (2) of the Constitution.
Interestingly, Mahto, one of the spearheads of the Jharkhand movement, has come back to the JMM in this elections, and been campaigning aggressively along with Soren senior, wooing the Kurmi voters in Kolhan, who had deserted the JMM in recent elections. He is now readying to camp in Santhal Pargana.
Significantly, Simon Marandi, another pal of Guruji, who remained in the JMM all these years, is fighting against the JMM in littipara, while another MP Suraj Mandal is fighting elections on the Jharkhand Vikas Dal ticket in Sarath opposite JMM's Shashank Shekhar Bhokta. Simon had quit the JMM after having invited wrath of Hemant Soren for his diatribe against the latter for denial of ticket to his son in the lok Sabha elections.
Mandal, who had been expelled from the JMM in 1999, had rejoined in 2009 to part ways again. He had been the vice-chairman of Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council when Soren was its Chairman in 1995.
Mahto told The Pioneer that he had been in the BJP for 10 years but it never trusted him any work. "The BJP could never digest me. It kept me idle all these years," he maintained and added that AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto was too junior to gel with him. "So, when Hemant Soren requested him to join the JMM campaign, I could not say no to him, though I have not formally joined the JMM," he pointed out.
The BJP, incidentally, had gifted his wife Abha Mahto a ticket to Parliament from Jamshedpur in 1998.
Significantly, he maintained that his decision to turn an approver helped the JMM leaders. "Otherwise they would have been in jail. In fact, my fight was against the Congress and host of senior Congress leaders had faced the consequences," he said.
Mahto, who is deeply involved in writing a book "Dharma ki khoj", asserted that Kurmi voters have shifted back to JMM making fights in Kolhan easier for the JMM.
The bribery case had been in the news a fortnight back when the Delhi High Courtheld that the money allegedly received by three former Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs and party chief Shibu Soren for voting in favour of the P V Narasimha Rao government in 1993 was liable to be taxed. The court set aside the decision of the income tax appellate tribunal (ITAT) holding that the money received by the JMM MPs is not liable to be taxed.