Ranchi
Assam Chief Minister and BJP’s co-incharge for Jharkhand, Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday praised former Chief Minister Champai Soren’s five-month tenure saying “he ran the Government better than Chief Minister Hemant Soren”.
Himanta said: “When I became the incharge for Jharkhand, I started following Champai Soren on Twitter and I found that whenever people sought hospital related help from him, he was prompt in action. I got inspired from him and started doing it myself in Assam. I neither know Champai personally nor ever spoke to him, though I will meet him after the polls. Hemant Soren committed his political murder by removing him after his release from jail. Was Champai not doing a good job?”
“By removing Champai, JMM’s total seats have reduced by at least 10 seats. You will see this after elections,” he asserted. Himanta said this while addressing a Vijay Sankalp Sabha in Ranchi to felicitate heads of booths in constituencies where BJP led in the recent Lok Sabha polls and later while reiterating his praise for Champai before media persons.
Hemant had quit as the Chief Minister on January 31 and the Enforcement Directorate arrested him subsequently for his alleged involvement in a money laundering case linked to a land scam. Thereafter, Champai became the CM and ran the Government for the next five months only to see Hemant removing him after his release from jail on bail earlier this month.
The BJP, with its ‘abki baar 400 paar’ slogan, was aiming to win all the 14 Lok Sabha seats from Jharkhand but lost all the 5 ST reserved seats including Khunti from where its then Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda lost by a big margin of nearly 1.5 lakh votes. The INDIA Bloc’s win was attributed to tribals’ resentment against Hemant’s arrest besides its messaging that there was a threat to the Constitution from the BJP, observers said.
Himanta pointed out that when he met the BJP leaders and workers here after the Lok Sabha results, he was surprised to find them crestfallen forgetting the fact that the BJP won 9 of the 14 seats and 9 seats was more than the five seats won by the INDIA Bloc. “So is the status at the Centre where we have won far more than INDIA Bloc and the 99 seats won by the Congress, which they are bandying around,” he said.
Attacking Hemant, the BJP co-incharge asked if any tribal leader gives company to the CM as it is only non-tribals like his advisor who roam around with him. He alleged that Jharkhand is witnessing a large influx of outsiders who are luring Adivasi girls on the pretext of marriage and usurping their land.
“Santhal Paragana has been transformed into Bangladesh. I demand that such a law be made that prevents the marriage of an Adivasi girl with an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant. If the second wife of a Muslim man is not a Muslim, then such a marriage be solemnized only under the Special Marriage Act. Else the marriage be declared null and void. For that matter, no one from Assam, Tripura and Bengal should also be allowed to marry the tribal girls here,” he said. He also questioned Hemant on the promises like 5 lakh jobs and money transfer to beneficiaries.
“Changing demography is a big issue for me. In Assam, Muslim population has reached 40% today. In 1951, it was 12%. We have lost many districts. This is not a political issue for me. It is a matter of life and death for me,” he said.
He further pointed out: “The infiltrators first enter Assam and West Bengal and then go to Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. The Jharkhand High Court has directed the State government to detect the infiltrators and deport them. It is the responsibility of the State government to detect and deport. It is not the responsibility of the Central government to do this. I do this work in Assam daily. If you are not fulfilling your responsibility and say that Delhi should do it, then why are you in the chair? You should leave the chair and we will do this work.”
With Hemant’s wife Kalpana now an MLA and active in politics, Himanta said she should as a mother and daughter fight against rapes, murders and conversion of tribal girls.
Himanta also raked up the death of Durga Soren, husband of Sita Soren who is the eldest daughter-in-law of JMM patriarch Shibu Soren. “Her husband was murdered and a post-mortem was not conducted. It is the party’s responsibility to stand with Sita Soren,” he said. Sita quit JMM and resigned as Jama MLA to unsuccessfully contest the Lok Sabha polls on a BJP ticket from Dumka.
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP that won 9 seats led in 52 Assembly constituencies and this is where the BJP is out to felicitate the heads of the booths. As many as 28 Assembly seats are reserved for STs in the Jharkhand Assembly, elections for which are to be held later this year. The INDIA Bloc had won 25 of them in 2019 while the BJP could win just 2 ST seats, which eventually forced it out of power.
