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As many as eight Congress MLAs, who were not included as ministers in the Champai Soren-led JMM government in Jharkhand, took off for Delhi to meet the party leadership on Saturday.
A strong resentment brewed among a large section of Congress legislators in Jharkhand over the induction of four party MLAs as ministers in the recently-expanded Jharkhand Cabinet.
“We are travelling to Delhi. Rest will be reaching tomorrow. We will hold discussions with Congress leadership there. We want replacement of all four. The 12 MLAs are together barring the four ministers and MLA Pradeep Yadav,” Congress legislator Kumar Jaimangal, alias Anup Singh, told news agency PTI.
Earlier in the day, unhappy legislators convened to discuss their grievances, which was attended by JMM’s new minister Basant Soren, the youngest son of party supremo Shibu Soren, who attempted to persuade them to reconsider their stance.
Despite the meeting, Basant Soren asserted, “There is no confusion. We are all united”.
The Congress MLAs are unhappy over party’s decision to give ministerial berths to Alamgir Alam, Rameshwar Oraon, Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh again.
Meanwhile, Champai Soren and state Congress president Rajesh Thakur have already reached Delhi, where they are scheduled to meet AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge.
The dissident MLAs have threatened to boycott the upcoming state assembly session starting February 23 and head to Jaipur if the ministers are not replaced with new faces.
The JMM-led alliance, comprising 47 MLAs (JMM-29, Congress-17, and one RJD), holds a majority in the 81-member Assembly.
Champai Soren had allocated portfolios to the ministers on Friday (January 16).
The majority of ministers have retained their portfolios from the previous Hemant Soren government, with only a few exceptions.
Senior Congress leader and minister Alamgir Alam, who has been given the portfolio of rural development, panchayati raj, and rural works department, assumed office at the state secretariat.
Jamshedpur (west) Congress MLA Banna Gupta took office as the minister of the health and disaster management department at Nepal House, while another Congress minister, Badal Patralekh, assumed charge of the agriculture and animal husbandry department.
Champai Soren was sworn in as the 12th chief minister of Jharkhand on February 2 following Hemant Soren’s arrest by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam.
