Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Sunday met with state Congress in-charge Avinash Pande amid the political turmoil in the state.
The meeting at the state Guest House lasted for about an hour and was held to discuss the next course of action.
Soren was asked afterwards about the delay in the Governor’s decision over the post of the Chief Minister, to which he replied that the Governor, Ramesh Bais can answer that better.
Following the meeting Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur said, “This meeting was between Chief Minister and Congress state incharge Avinash Pande. What they have discussed is not right to make public. But yes they have discussed about the state political situation and the cloud of uncertainty.”
Earlier a meeting of the Congress Legislative Party was held on Saturday night to discuss on the strategy and further course of action.
Congress leader and health minister Banna Gupta on Saturday said that a conspiracy was in place to destabilize the government in the state.
“A conspiracy was hatched to destabilize our state govt. Across the country, elected govts are being destabilised. Now, it has become a norm. Congress is firmly standing against it and there's no crisis in govt,” he said at the end of the meeting.
Jharkhand Congress in-charge Avinash Pande who arrived in Ranchi on Saturday, presided over the meeting.
The ruling alliance has a total of 30 MLAs of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), 18 Congress MLAs and one Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren had called a meeting of the Jharkhand’s ruling UPA coalition members on Saturday amidst speculation about his possible disqualification as an MLA in the state assembly for the alleged violation of poll norms by extending himself a mining lease.
It was the third such meeting in two days with several MLAs seen arriving for the meeting with luggage in tow.
Meanwhile, Soren took to Twitter to say that he hailed from a tribal community and the current slugfest did not faze him.
MLAs of the ruling coalition on Friday assured Soren of their support with Gupta mentioning that the JMM-Congress coalition is “standing strong”.
It may be noted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sought the disqualification of Soren as an MLA on accusations of allocating a mining lease to himself when he was the mines minister in 2021.
The BJP had submitted a memorandum to the Governor in February seeking disqualification of Soren from the house under Section 9(A) of the Representation of People’s Act.
The Governor had forwarded the complaint of the BJP to the Election Commission of India and the poll body had issued a notice to the JMM leader in May.
