Jharkhand News: Just a few days ago, big stalwarts of opposition parties sat together in the Constitution Club of Delhi and waved their hands in the air. In that high-profile meeting of the ‘India’ alliance, leaders of more than 20 opposition parties, including Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) youth leader Tejashwi Yadav, had shared the stage. There, big pledges of opposition unity were taken in front of the country and a claim was made to fight together. But the ink of that meeting in Delhi was not yet dry when a huge and unexpected ‘game’ took place with the Congress in the elections for two Rajya Sabha seats in Jharkhand.
Despite having sufficient numerical strength in Jharkhand Assembly, Congress’s official candidate Pranab Jha had to face a crushing defeat. In this election, independent candidate Parimal Nathwani, who contested with the support of NDA, won, while the candidate of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) won the second seat easily. Immediately after this unexpected defeat, the upset Congress has made serious allegations against its own alliance partners RJD and ML of openly betraying them.
People’s own people stabbed him in the back: Congress in-charge’s big allegation
After this crushing defeat, the anger of Jharkhand Congress in-charge K Raju reached the seventh sky. Coming before the media, he directly blamed his own allies RJD and leftist party MLA for this failure. K Raju said in a very harsh tone that the Congress candidate did not get the support and cooperation from his own colleagues which was expected.
He claimed that Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s party JMM, showing honesty, cast its 4 extra votes in Congress’s favor, but RJD and ML MLAs betrayed them at the last moment. According to the Congress in-charge, the MLAs of both these parties did cross voting secretly, due to which the defeat of the Congress candidate was decided. Expressing great disappointment, he said that it is very unfortunate that the ruling coalition has disintegrated like this and he is deeply hurt by this entire incident. However, no official clarification has yet come from RJD or ML on this serious allegation.
How did the whole dice change?
Amidst all this election drama, a picture is floating on social media which has heated up the market of speculations in the political circles from Jharkhand to Delhi. During the elections, the picture of Chief Minister Hemant Soren and senior BJP leaders sitting together and drinking tea contentedly has increased the heartbeats of the opposition camp. This one picture has once again revived the old speculations about Hemant Soren changing sides and joining NDA.
On the other hand, political analysts clearly believe that the excessive self-confidence of the Congress itself is responsible for the plight of Pranab Jha. While on one hand BJP and Parimal Nathwani’s team were trying hard for every vote, on the other hand Congress leaders were sitting completely confident of victory. Jharkhand Government’s Health Minister and senior Congress leader Irfan Ansari had openly claimed during the voting that a total of 61 votes were coming in his favor. But as soon as the results box was opened, all his big claims went up in smoke.
Congress could have won easily
If we understand the entire mathematics within the Jharkhand Assembly, then at least 28 first preference votes were required to win a Rajya Sabha seat in this assembly of total 81 members. In the final results, JMM’s Baidyanath Ram got a total of 30 votes and won handsomely. At the same time, independent Parimal Nathwani secured his seat by securing exactly 28 votes. In contrast, Congress’s Pranab Jha was limited to just 20 votes. During this period, three votes were also declared invalid. The entire ruling alliance led by JMM had a total of 56 MLAs. If this infighting and cross-voting had not happened within the alliance, both Congress and JMM candidates would have won this election without any problem. This defeat has now raised a big question mark on the internal unity of the ‘India’ alliance.
