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Ranchi
If problems crept in a scheduled way for BJP Chief Minister Arjun Munda on Friday, the unscheduled visit of party national president Nitin Gadkari in Ranchi on that evening quashed these claims.
Mutually stonewalled coalition partners in his Governments — the JMM had already jangled his nerves over the continuation of demolition drive in Jharkhand; the known Munda bashers within the party suddenly became active to unseat him.
Meeting leaders after leaders in New Delhi right from Lal Krishna Advani to Gadkari in the past one week; they kept their move a close secret, but some of the loose sheets of their script widely became available for public consumption.
The unexpected visit of Gadkari gave a new lease of life to Munda and in some way it was a snub and a message for Munda’s detractors: Munda enjoys the support of Central BJP bosses.
At a time when Munda was in a desperate rapprochement bid with the JMM and the party chief Shibu Soren whose criticism of the government and the state bureaucracy left Munda rasping; Gadkari’s pat on his back came on the right time.
Gadkari’s fitness certificate to the Munda Government offered a new lease of life that came with an embedded message for known Munda bashers like former party president Raghuwar Das that the party intends no regime change.
The spectre of President’s rule had terrified Munda after the UPA Government sought details from the Governor MOH Farook over the law and order situation in Jharkhand in the wake of the demolition drive. Gadkari took the cudgel to defend the Government and asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to collect facts of the fiction and reality of the problem in Jharkhand; that to him was exacerbated by the Opposition.
The BJP officially maintained that Gadkari en route to West Bengal had to divert his flight due to cloud hovering in the sky of Burdwan. But the sources in the party accepted that his forced landing at Sonari airport in Jamshedpur had a political overture. “At a time when the cloud of uncertainty was hovering over the fate of the Munda Government his visit was not a coincidence. His presence was badly required for obvious reasons and he made a timely entry,” a senior party functionary said.
Munda who till Friday afternoon had apparently lost his trademark smile got it soon by late Friday evening after he along with Cabinet colleagues Hemant Soren of the JMM and Sudesh Kumar Mahato of the AJSU emerged out of the meeting. The cloud of suspense was dispelled before it could flash a silver line and before it could rain. A user guide of coalition dharma and advice to keep the toast of trust tossing all the times was handed over to the coalition partners.
Munda had repaired his jangled nerves and emerged stronger but not at the cost of the JMM and chief Shibu Soren scored much without having any podium moment. If anything emerged out this crisis it was a lesson for Munda. Soren has sufficiently made his intention known that in a coalition set-up like this Munda cannot have the privy of running the Government on his personal and party agenda while treating the alliance partners as a doormat. Even the BJP insiders accepted Soren’s masterstroke has swooning impact on the BJP.
“From electoral point of view the demolition drive has affected the BJP maximum. The party has faced flak from all sides. But the way the JMM intervened in the matter; risking direct confrontation has helped it to gain public support,” a senior BJP leader said.
The leader raised some more vital points: “Very smartly the JMM refused to share the burden of collateral damage of the demolition drive even after the Government was bound to act upon the High court’s directive. Munda took a month time to reach at no conclusion; the JMM took less then 48 hours to score points. Running a Government is a fine mixture of administrative acumen and political decision. Politician Munda lost somewhere in administrative Munda.
Having brought the BJP to such a low under the pile of the debris of demolition, Munda may now have enough time and space to ponder for lowly as it is, these demolished places are also a lonely place.
If problems crept in a scheduled way for BJP Chief Minister Arjun Munda on Friday, the unscheduled visit of party national president Nitin Gadkari in Ranchi on that evening quashed these claims.
Mutually stonewalled coalition partners in his Governments — the JMM had already jangled his nerves over the continuation of demolition drive in Jharkhand; the known Munda bashers within the party suddenly became active to unseat him.
Meeting leaders after leaders in New Delhi right from Lal Krishna Advani to Gadkari in the past one week; they kept their move a close secret, but some of the loose sheets of their script widely became available for public consumption.
The unexpected visit of Gadkari gave a new lease of life to Munda and in some way it was a snub and a message for Munda’s detractors: Munda enjoys the support of Central BJP bosses.
At a time when Munda was in a desperate rapprochement bid with the JMM and the party chief Shibu Soren whose criticism of the government and the state bureaucracy left Munda rasping; Gadkari’s pat on his back came on the right time.
Gadkari’s fitness certificate to the Munda Government offered a new lease of life that came with an embedded message for known Munda bashers like former party president Raghuwar Das that the party intends no regime change.
The spectre of President’s rule had terrified Munda after the UPA Government sought details from the Governor MOH Farook over the law and order situation in Jharkhand in the wake of the demolition drive. Gadkari took the cudgel to defend the Government and asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to collect facts of the fiction and reality of the problem in Jharkhand; that to him was exacerbated by the Opposition.
The BJP officially maintained that Gadkari en route to West Bengal had to divert his flight due to cloud hovering in the sky of Burdwan. But the sources in the party accepted that his forced landing at Sonari airport in Jamshedpur had a political overture. “At a time when the cloud of uncertainty was hovering over the fate of the Munda Government his visit was not a coincidence. His presence was badly required for obvious reasons and he made a timely entry,” a senior party functionary said.
Munda who till Friday afternoon had apparently lost his trademark smile got it soon by late Friday evening after he along with Cabinet colleagues Hemant Soren of the JMM and Sudesh Kumar Mahato of the AJSU emerged out of the meeting. The cloud of suspense was dispelled before it could flash a silver line and before it could rain. A user guide of coalition dharma and advice to keep the toast of trust tossing all the times was handed over to the coalition partners.
Munda had repaired his jangled nerves and emerged stronger but not at the cost of the JMM and chief Shibu Soren scored much without having any podium moment. If anything emerged out this crisis it was a lesson for Munda. Soren has sufficiently made his intention known that in a coalition set-up like this Munda cannot have the privy of running the Government on his personal and party agenda while treating the alliance partners as a doormat. Even the BJP insiders accepted Soren’s masterstroke has swooning impact on the BJP.
“From electoral point of view the demolition drive has affected the BJP maximum. The party has faced flak from all sides. But the way the JMM intervened in the matter; risking direct confrontation has helped it to gain public support,” a senior BJP leader said.
The leader raised some more vital points: “Very smartly the JMM refused to share the burden of collateral damage of the demolition drive even after the Government was bound to act upon the High court’s directive. Munda took a month time to reach at no conclusion; the JMM took less then 48 hours to score points. Running a Government is a fine mixture of administrative acumen and political decision. Politician Munda lost somewhere in administrative Munda.
Having brought the BJP to such a low under the pile of the debris of demolition, Munda may now have enough time and space to ponder for lowly as it is, these demolished places are also a lonely place.
