UPA allies lock horns in Jharkhand

With two UPA constituents, the RJD and JMM, refusing to back off, Congress state in-charge Harikesh Bahadur has requested Sonia Gandhi to st...

With two UPA constituents, the RJD and JMM, refusing to back off, Congress state in-charge Harikesh Bahadur has requested Sonia Gandhi to step in to resolve the tangle over the Rajya Sabha seat in Jharkhand.

The seat at stake has been vacated by Stephen Marandi, the UPA convenor in Jharkhand, following his election to the Assembly. Marandi, who had won as a rebel candidate after the JMM denied him a ticket, later sided with the UPA.

Now, JMM chief Shibu Soren has fielded his elder son Durga Soren, who lost the last Assembly poll from Jama. RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav has put up Muktinath Upadhyay, once general secretary of JMM and close associate of Soren. They are pitted against NDA candidate Digvijay Singh, a former Union minister of state.

Sources disclosed that Bahadur wrote a letter to Sonia today stating that both Upadhyay and Durga were in the fray after the expiry of deadline for withdrawals. He told her efforts made by him and senior party leader Ahmed Patel to persuade RJD to pull out had not succeeded. Bahadur suggested that Sonia should intervene to prevent a split in UPA votes.

When reached for comments, Bahadur admitted that he had ‘‘informed Madam (Sonia) about the developments in Jharkhand …Talks are on and we are hopeful that some way would be found to end the stalemate.’’

Upadhyay, meanwhile, ruled out any possibility of his withdrawal. He told The Indian Express: ‘‘I am serious about my candidature because a majority of UPA MLAs are with me.’’

Sources disclosed that the Congress is in favour of JMM for two reasons. One, the seat originally belongs to the JMM. Two, of all UPA members, JMM has the largest chunk of 17. The Congress has nine seats and the RJD, seven. In a House of 82, where NDA commands a wafer-thin majority of two, a fully united opposition can spring a surprise, particularly when the nomination of Digvijay Singh, a JD(U) leader from Bihar, has not gone down well with all NDA members. So, the unity of the ruling NDA, led by Chief Minister Arjun Munda, will also be put on test at the bypoll on June 3.

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However, far from being able to cash in on dissenssions in the NDA, it is the UPA which is embroiled in wranglings.

Although Independent MLAs — Madhu Koda, Sudesh Mahato, C.P. Choudhury, Enos Ekka, Hari Narayan Rai and Kamlesh Singh — have not come out in support of Singh, the nominated MLA together with his counterparts in BJP and the JD(U) were expected to vote en masse for him, making his victory almost certain.

The RJD’s present stand can be traced to the snub it got from Congress and JMM before the polls. The two parties unilaterally sealed a seat-sharing deal, leaving out RJD, which put up an impressive show by winning seven seats and finishing second in over a dozen.

It is another matter that RJD backed Soren’s claim for the formation of a government as part of an understanding with the Congress extending up to Bihar later.

(With inputs from Manoj Prasad in Ranchi)