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Hemant Soren’s swearing-in set to be Opposition’s show of strength
Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and her Maharashtra and Delhi counterparts Uddhav Thackeray and Arvind Kejriwal will attend the event.
Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony of Jharkhand’s chief minister-designate Hemant Soren is expected to serve as a show of strength by top leaders of political parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party at a time when the latter confronts stiff resistance to the new citizenship law it has pushed through Parliament.
Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and her Maharashtra and Delhi counterparts Uddhav Thackeray and Arvind Kejriwal will attend the event.
All of them have confirmed their attendance as have Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president MK Stalin and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, said leaders of Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee will also attend.
JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya said Congress CMs Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan, Kamal Nath of Madhya Pradesh and Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh would be present at the event besides former CMs Harish Rawat, Uttarakhand and HD Kumaraswamy, Karnataka.
It would the first such gathering of opposition luminaries since the swearing-in in May 2018 of a short-lived Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government headed by Kumaraswamy that resigned in July this year after a rebellion by some of its MLAs. Their presence on a common stage gains significance in the context of protests that have taken place against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens and the resistance that opposition parties have put up against Centre’s move to implement them.
“The gathering needs to be seen through the prism of the opposition against the CAA and NRC by most of the non-BJP parties. These parties want to send out the message that a big chunk of the country’s population.. especially when assembly elections in two big states like Bihar and West Bengal are scheduled next,” said LK Kundan, who teaches political science at Ranchi University.
On the invitee list, Jharkhand BJP spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo said:“...They are free to invite people they want for their moment of victory.”
Bhattacharya said Soren had also invited PM Narendra Modi. “We thought we would be encouraged if a popular prime minister attends swearing-in of a popular chief minister. However, his office has sent good wishes and informed us that he would not be able to attend in person due to his prior commitments,” he said. Outgoing CM and BJP leader Ragubhar Das and his cabinet colleagues have also been invited.
He said Soren had also invited many other leaders such as Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Biju Janata Dal chief and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, but they were yet to confirm their presence. “...We are still to get confirmation from the Bihar CM. However, JD (U) leader and vice-chairman of Rajya Sabha, Harivansh has confirmed his presence,” he said.
The JMM, in an alliance with the Congress and the RJD, swept to power in Jharkhand this week by unseating the BJP. The alliance won 47 seats in the 81-member assembly in the five-phase elections that ended on December 20, The BJP won 25 seats.
The alliance has decided to hold the swearing-in ceremony at the Moharabadi Ground, one of the biggest grounds in Ranchi, and has appealed to people from across the state to attend the event. The ground can hold 200,000 people. Although the alliance has not announced who all would take the oath of office with Soren, party leaders, requesting anonymity, said Congress leader of the house Alamgir Alam is also likely to be sworn in on Sunday.
“The prerogative of deciding on the Cabinet is of the CM...” said a JMM leader, who didn’t want to be named.
