New Delhi: The Congress is not angry with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) for announcing its Rajya Sabha nominee but would want to know the compulsions behind the move from Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren. "See, we are not angry. But we were expecting that our candidate will file nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat from the alliance quota. So, we would like to meet the Chief Minister and get to know the compulsions behind the JMM move,” Congress national spokesperson Professor Gourav Vallabh told ETV Bharat.
According to Prof Vallabh, who contested the 2019 Jharkhand assembly polls against then chief minister Raghubar Das, the grand old party has to keep in mind the larger focus on the mandate given to the ruling coalition by the voters. "Beyond a Rajya Sabha seat, the challenge before the ruling alliance is to provide good governance in the state," he said. Party insiders said the JMM had 32 MLAs, more than the requisite number of 28 MLAs needed to get its nominee Mahua Maji elected to the Rajya Sabha.
In this background, the Congress could hardly do anything about the issue except for conveying its displeasure to the ally, said the sources. "We had offered the RS seat to the JMM founder Shibu Soren ji last time," said Prof Vallabh. The last date for nomination ended on Tuesday. Listing the next steps, he said the RS seat issue will first be discussed internally and then with the JMM leadership.
Also read: Jharkhand RS seat imbroglio: Avinash Pandey to hold meeting with Cong leaders, talk to Soren
The Congress spokesperson described the meeting of party leaders in Ranchi on Tuesday as a conclave to discuss the implementation of the Udaipur Declaration and said the consultations would continue on Wednesday as well. "The JMM nominee announcement was certainly news to us. We will discuss and introspect over the matter," said Prof Vallabh, when asked if there was resentment among the local leaders over the issue.
"This is not the time for knee-jerk reactions. We would share our views with the chief minister in due course," he said. On the assurance given to party chief Sonia Gandhi by the chief minister a few days ago, Prof Vallabh said, "I do not know what transpired between the two leaders." AICC in-charge of Jharkhand Avinash Pande would have a better sense of how the local leaders were reacting to the development, he said. Soren’s meeting in fact came days after the senior Congress leaders including PCC chief Rajesh Thakur and CLP leader Alamgir Alam discussed the RS polls with Pande.
