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The decision to support Soren, president of the state's main opposition party, was taken at a meeting in Ranchi on Monday to decide the next course of action, Samata Party general secretary Mangni Lal Mandal and Rajya Sabha member Rajiv Ranjan told a joint press conference in the state capital.
Asked why the Samata Party was supporting the opposition candidate in Dumka, Rajiv Ranjan retorted, "If the BJP is free to take its own decisions, why not Samata?"
The matter of the party continuing to be a member of the BJP-led coalition in the state would be decided after the Dumka election, the two politicians said.
Asked if this confrontational stance was aimed at installing an alternative government in Jharkhand, they said they would look for one "after the party finally quits the coalition in the state".
On whether the rumblings between the allies in Jharkhand would strain their relations at the Centre, Ranjan retorted, "If a house is on fire, its neighbourhood is bound to suffer at least partially."
Senior Samata politician and Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, however, told reporters in Patna, capital of neighbouring Bihar, that the party was "not in a hurry" to withdraw support to the Marandi government.
He, however, blamed the senior NDA partner, the BJP, for the standoff.
Samata politicians also appealed to all non-BJP allies in the ruling coalition in Jharkhand to vote for their candidate Raj Kishore Mahato in the Rajya Sabha election scheduled for May 30.
Mandal and Rajiv Ranjan charged the BJP with 'treachery' for having fielded its candidate, Abhay Kant Prasad, for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state. "There was a clear understanding between the central leaderships of the two parties," Ranjan said, "that the BJP would not join the fray. Yet state BJP leaders misrepresented things before their high command and fielded their candidate for the seat, on which the Samata had a natural claim." The BJP's action, Ranjan alleged, violated the ethics of a coalition.
He said that on the morning of May 17, the last date for filing nominations for the Rajya Sabha poll, BJP president K Jana Krishnamurthy had made it clear to senior Samata politician George Fernandes that his party would not field a candidate. "Yet, strangely enough, exactly the reverse happened," he said.
"The BJP did not stop at that and went as far as to comment that Samata Party leader Nitish Kumar was making irresponsible statements," he complained. The BJP, he said, was clearly not behaving like the leader of a coalition.
On the state BJP's argument that the central leadership alone would decide whether its Rajya Sabha nominee would be withdrawn, the Samata politicians said this was just a case of passing the buck to avert the crisis facing the party. "It was the state BJP leaders on whose initiative Abhay Kant Prasad was fielded for the Rajya Sabha seat," he told the press conference, held soon after the Samata meeting. "The BJP central leadership was completely in the dark about it."
The Rajya Sabha by-election is being held following the death of Samata Party MP Dayanand Sahay. Mandal and Ranjan were sent to Ranchi to take stock of the situation in view of the standoff with the BJP and report to the Samata's central leadership. All five Samata Party ministers who resigned from the Marandi ministry and a host of state party politicians attended Monday's meeting.
PTI
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