Still smarting under the humiliating defeat in the parliamentary elections and desertion of several party MlAs thereafter, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) boss Babulal Marandi has said that there was direct and indirect offer from both the BJP as well as the Congress to merge his eight-year old party, but he rejected the proposal outright.
Marandi, in an interview with The Pioneer, said he had groomed his party with some issues in the State and will fight to resolve them. "I am a farmer's son and have learnt to earn bread in the sweat of my brow. I do not want to thrive on others' earning. Apne banaye gaye jhopri mein rahana jyada accha hai (It is more comfortable to live in one's hut than to aspire for the other's palace)," Marandi, who quit the BJP in 2006, maintained.
He, however, said that he was ready to discuss any other proposal (read pre/post-poll alliance) from the two national parties. "Incidentally, there is no proposal either from the Congress or the BJP so far,"
he added. The former Chief Minister recalled that there was a proposal from the Congress for pre-poll alliance in 2009 and we decided to go for it.
He said that some friends in the Congress had approached him for working on "mahagathbandhan (grand alliance)" but he had made it clear that the person, who will lead it, should be identified first.
Marandi said that the 'grand alliance' experiment is not new for Jharkhand. "For coalition governments have been in power in one form or other in Jharkhand for the last 14 years and my experience with them has not been good. So, we will have to project such a face, who creates hope among the public," he maintained.
He also reiterated that it won't be proper for him to accept Hemant Soren as the leader of the grand alliance. "How come Hemant be our leader when he has auctioned even sand to the outsiders, forget the other natural resources. He is presiding over a thoroughly corrupt Government. If the Congress and others still choose him, I am ready to contest all the 81 seats," he declared.
He, however, maintained that he was not bargaining to get himself projected. "I never believed in the politics of bargain. Had it been so, I would not have resigned as Chief Minister in 2003," he maintained.
"Also, it is an open secret that people approached us with cash bags during the Rajya Sabha elections but I refused to budge," he said.
Marandi said that his rivals are spreading a canard that he was a captain of a team whose members have deserted. "I have already said that the party which did not have leaders poached our MlAs and the MlAs, who were losing their ground fast, quit the JVM. My party is intact," he said.
"How come a party like BJP lure my 9-10 senior leadersIJ It meant that the so-called national parties have no leader in the State to fight the elections," he said.
He said that BJP chief Amit Shah's declaration for fighting the Assembly elections under Narendra Modi's leadership vindicated that he has no faith in any State leader.
Commenting on the issue of installing a non-tribal Chief Minister, being raked up by some BJP leaders, he described the issue as absurd. "There is no provision of reservation in the Constitution for the Chief Minister's post. It is a vote bank politics of the worst order. It is for the MlAs and for the party to decide who becomes the Chief Minister after elections are over," he maintained.