Hours after a summon from the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged illegal mining scam, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren got into a huddle with the ruling alliance legislators at his residence on Wednesday to chalk out future strategy.
Soren leads an alliance government of his party JMM, Congress and RJD.
The state government also decided to call a one-day special session of the assembly on November 11 to pass the Bill, which was already cleared by the cabinet, fixing 1932 as the base year to decide one’s domicile status in the state, as against the the prevailing cut-off year of 1985.
CM Soren is unlikely to appear before the federal agency on Thursday, an official said. “The chief minister is scheduled to go to Raipur to attend the tribal festival on Thursday, as per schedule fixed long back. The CM is also scheduled to attend a cabinet meeting, besides attending Sarkar Aapke Dwar programmes in different districts on different dates,” said the official, who did not wish to be named.
In fact, in an unprecedented move, the state government’s public relations department on Wednesday evening released a list of important official engagements from November 3 to November 15.
Soren’s party JMM also threatened to lodge a “street-to-assembly” battle against the “conspiracy” to destabilise his goverment.
“The conspiracy started in 2020 itself. The opposition is using the central agency to encroach into governance and destabilise the government. They want to rob the mandate of 2019, which was historic in the two-decade history of Jharkhand. We are prepared to give them adequate reply and launch a street-to-assembly fight akin to what we did during the Jharkhand movement, which is still remembered by people,” said JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya.
Meanwhile, opposition BJP has decided to launch a week-long agitation from November 7 against the alleged corruption in the government.
“This government came in the name of Jal, Jungle, Zameen (to protect water, forest and land), but the people on the top themselves looted the state’s resources. It’s unfortunate the CM himself and his family members are directly involved in corruption. CM’s political representative is in jail and people close to him have been questioned by the ED. We would launch a statewide protest,” said Jharkhand BJP spokesperson Saroj Singh.
