SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, February 1: With Governor CP Radhakrishnan not hurrying to invite Champai Soren to form a government, the JMM-Congress MLAs were being shifted to Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana ruled by the Congress.
The move was taken to stave off the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) possible poaching attempt amid the buzz that the Governor is weighing all options before inviting Champai Soren.
According to sources, five members, including Champai Soren, Pradeep Yadav, Badal Patralekh, Satyanand Bhokta and Vinod Singh, will stay in Jharkhand to take a call in case the governor invites them to form a government.
The rest of the 38 MLAs were shifted to Hyderabad.
Earlier, they had mulled to shift to West Bengal by road in view of the prevailing inclement weather in the day. However, they finally decided to take shelter in a Congress-ruled state, Telangana, after the visibility improved in the evening.
A senior Congress leader said that we apprehend that the BJP will now indulge in poaching our MLAs to create a constitutional crisis in the State and pave the way for the President’s rule.
“So, we have sent our MLAs to move to a friendly state,” he added.
Raipur resort
Earlier, the ruling coalition had shifted its MLAs to Raipur in 2022 when the then Governor Ramesh Bais was set to announce his decision disqualifying Hemant Soren in an office-of-profit case.
The ruling coalition has 47 MLAs in the 81-member Assembly, but only 43 MLAs are said to have signed the letter of support submitted to the Governor.
The ruling coalition believes that the BJP may attempt to poach MLAs from it to topple the government like Maharashtra, and there is a need to ringfence the legislators in a safe haven.
