New Delhi: The decision of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's (JMM) to support the NDA candidate for presidential election has come as a big surprise for Congress, which is a key member of the ruling UPA in Jharkhand.
At a time when speculations are very rife in political circles about the tribal party's growing closeness to the BJP, the decision of JMM has added fuel to the theory of JMM getting closer to the saffron party.
Notably, the UPA partners Congress and RJD are backing opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, a son of the soil for Jharkhand, in the July 18 presidential poll and JMM had initially given its nod to his candidature.
However, as per political analysts, JMM was caught in an obvious bind when NDA announced the name of Droupadi Murmu, who if she wins, will be the first tribal woman president of the country.
Soonafter Murmu's candidature was announced, JMM was in a dilemma whether to back the "son of the soil" or a "fellow tribal" as both -- Murmu and Soren -- are tribal leaders and belong to the Santhal ethnic group which has a sizeable population in Jharkhand and in neighbouring Odisha, from where she hails.
The JMM decision to support Murmu came at a time when Hemant Soren, its executive president and Jharkhand chief minister, is facing legal proceedings before Jharkhand High Court in a case of office-of-profit in a mine lease and alleged money laundering issues. Besides, the Election Commission has fixed August 5 as the next date of hearing in the mine lease case in which the BJP has sought his disqualification as an MLA under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Not much was left to the imagination about the growing closeness after pictures of Soren extending a warm welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his July 12 Jharkhand visit to unveil projects worth over Rs 16,800 crore went viral. Soren had himself taken stock of the preparations for the visit.
Soren had also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other NDA leaders in New Delhi on June 27 but
had skipped the nomination by Sinha.