Ranchi, Sep 7 (IANS) The lust for power has finally brought the friends-turned-foes-turned-friends together again after three months. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) have once again joined hands in Jharkhand and staked claim Tuesday to form the government, with Arjun Munda as the chief minister.
The relation between the BJP and the JMM turned sour in April when Shibu Soren voted in favour of the Manmohan Singh government against the BJP cut motions in parliament. An angry BJP withdrew support to Soren’s government in May and the JMM chief was forced to resign May 30.
Now both the parties have joined hands again to form government.
Two senior JMM legislators — Teklal Mahto and Simon Marandi — who in May were opposed to aligning with the BJP have now extended support to the party. Teklal, who had always wanted a United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, on Tuesday went to the BJP office with Soren’s son Hemant Soren to hand over the letter of support to the BJP.
The BJP and JMM first joined hands in December last year after the assembly poll. The BJP had faced severe criticism when it supported the JMM-led Shibu Soren government.
It was the same BJP that stalled parliament in July 2004 when a non-bailable arrest warrant surfaced against Soren. Soren had to resign as union coal minister. The BJP-JMM relations worsened in March 2005 when Soren was invited to form government despite the fact that the numbers were against him.
The BJP raised a hue and cry over the issue and approached then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and sought his intervention. The party succeeded in its efforts and got to form the government in March after Soren failed to prove majority.
Now both Shibu Soren and Arjun Munda, a former chief minister of the BJP, are on the same side. Munda went to seek the blessings of Soren Tuesday before staking claim to form government. Soren gave his good wishes and told reporters: ‘I have given my blessings to Munda.’
The Congress, which was once a friend of the JMM, has termed the new alliance ‘an act of opportunism’. Jharkhand Congress president Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu called it an ‘unholy alliance’.
The political situation perfectly fits the saying that in politics there are no permanent friends and no permanent foes.
(Nityanand Shukla can be contacted at nityanand.s@ians.in)
