The MLAs of the ruling Jharkhand coalition Wednesday expressed solidarity with Chief Minister and JMM executive president Hemant Soren, assuring him that they will stand by him. They asserted that Soren will continue as the CM. Soren convened a meeting of the ministers and legislators of the JMM-led coalition at his residence to discuss the prevailing political situation in the state in the backdrop of the Enforcement Directorate (ED)'s repeated summons to him. The MLAs of the ruling camp said there was no threat to the stability of the Soren-led government. Allaying the concerns of his allies, Soren told them that he was not going to step down, sources said. The CM also told the MLAs not to leave the state in order to put at rest various rumours doing the rounds. Of the 47 MLAs of the ruling coalition – including the JMM's 29, the Congress's 17, and the RJD's 1 – 45 were present at the meeting. In the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, the Opposition BJP-led NDA has 29 MLAs, including the BJP's 26 and the AJSU Party's 3. Following the ruling camp's meeting on Wednesday evening, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) posted a statement on social media, saying “The latest political situation in the state was discussed in the meeting. All the MLAs expressed their confidence in the CM. He (Soren) said that he is always with them and will continue to be so. They are united in any kind of situation. Any kind of conspiracy against the state government will not succeed. Under (Soren).the state government is working for development and public interest and this work will continue.” All eyes were on this meeting after Gandey MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad, 70, resigned from the membership of the Assembly on December 31, a day after the ED issued its seventh summons to Soren for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam. The ED's probe in this case reportedly pertains to alleged “huge racket of illegal change of ownership of land by the mafia” in Jharkhand. While Ahmad said he resigned due to “personal reasons”, the state BJP alleged that he was made to quit to facilitate CM Soren's wife Kalpana Soren to contest the bypoll from Gandey so that she could become the CM in the wake of any eventuality arising out of the ED's investigations. CM Soren, however, dismissed the BJP's claims as “false and baseless”. Soren has ignored six earlier summonses issued by the ED in the case, accusing the BJP-led Centre of allegedly using its agencies to destabilise his government. In response to the ED's sixth summons last month, Soren had said he was being called in for questioning by the ED only because “he doesn’t belong to any political party in power at the Centre”. “Issuance of repeated summons is actually malice and part of a political conspiracy to destabilise a democratically elected government. The undersigned shall readily provide any information or documents which you may bona fide require and which are not already available with you, provided you are entitled to seek the same in accordance with law,” the CM stated. Earlier on Wednesday, the ED conducted raids in the premises of Sahebganj deputy commissioner Ram Niwas Yadav and Soren’s press advisor Abhishek Prasad alias Pintu. The Jharkhand Assembly elections are slated for November-December this year.
