Amidst the prevailing stalemate over continuation of chief minister Hemant Soren as an MLA, the Jharkhand assembly on Monday passed the confidence motion tabled by the ruling coalition even as the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a walkout just ahead of the voting.
Of the 78 members of the 82 member house (including one nominated member), who could vote, 48 MLAs voted in favour of the government. The Speaker of the house does not vote, unless there is a tie. Three suspended Congress MLA could not attend the session as a West Bengal court asked them not to leave Kolkata after they were caught carrying Rs 49,00,000 in their car.
In all 29 MLAs from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), 15 from Congress, and one each from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), NCP, and CPI-ML and the sole nominated member, representing the Anglo Indian community, voted for the government.
Those who staged walkout included the BJP, its ally the AJSU and independent legislators Saryu Roy and Amit Yadav. Both Roy and Yadav won as BJP rebels in 2019 and the former was supporting the government until recently. The main opposition BJP has 26 MLAs in the house while the AJSU Party has two.
The one-day session was convened by the Soren-led government amidst the silence on part of Governor Ramesh Bais in an office-of-profit case against Soren that could lead to his disqualification. The Governor is yet to make public the Election Commision of India’s opinion over the issue sent to Raj Bhawan on August 25. ECI, it is widely believed, recommended his disqualification as a member of the house. It is not clear why the Governor is yet to act on the poll body’s advice.
During the session that lasted for just around two hours, both the ruling alliance and the opposition hit out at each other. While the opposition questioned the rationale for the confidence motion, the treasury benches claimed it was important to show the people of the country the ruling alliance’s in the House despite “attempts by the BJP to destabilise a democratically elected government”.
“We want to show you through this (motion) that there is no threat to this government. And any kind of horse trading will not work. People are watching. Forget about the next assembly polls in (December) 2024; people will teach you lesson even in Lok Sabha polls (April-May 2024),” said Soren.
The chief minister also raised questions over the delay on part of the Governor in making public the ECI opinion on his membership.
