Soren set to become Jharkhand CM

NEW DELHI: Shibu Soren is tantalizingly close to realising his aspiration to be the chief minister of Jharkhand — a state he helped form — with the UPA leadership successfully persuading incumbent Madhu Koda to step down for 'Guruji'.

Koda is expected to announce his resignation on Saturday. The agreement with Koda capped hectic parleys among UPA partners to facilitate Soren's ascension.

A power-sharing arrangement has been worked out which centres on maintaining the status quo with the significant exception of change at the helm.

All members of the Koda ministry — the two deputy chief ministers and the seven Independents who play 'kingmaker' — are proposed to be retained while the outgoing CM may be given charge of the UPA steering committee.

The committee will not be mere cosmetic as RJD, which was loath to support Soren and came around only at the instance of the Congress leadership, expects it to protect its interests in the state.

While Soren's decision to pull out of the coalition government had looked as ill-timed bravado, he managed to pull it off with the help of the Congress leadership which needs his five votes in the Lok Sabha and is keen to repeat the alliance with the JMM and RJD which helped it sweep all but one of the 14 seats Jharkhand has in the Lower House.

Stephen Marandi, who was till recently a Soren loyalist, remains a holdout, but the UPA managers are confident of bringing him around.

Fears of early assembly polls — a certain prospect if Soren is not made the chief minister — may prove the calculation right. The Koda government failed to perform and those associated with it are likely to pay a heavy price at the hustings. Jharkhand watchers don't expect the change to ring in anything different, but are apprehensive that the arrival of a new chief minister and the proximity of polls may lead to a fresh scramble for mining leases in the resource-rich state.


Source : Times Of India