Exit Soren: Oppn wins the first round...

NEW DELHI: In the battle of nerves between the BJP-led NDA and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the former appears to have won the first round with the resignation of Shibu Soren on Saturday. The former Union coal and mines minister is the main accused in the Chirudih massacre in 1975 in which 10 people, including nine Muslims were killed. The case came to limelight when a Jharkhand court issued warrant against him and Soren went absconding after that.
His resignation, however, disconcerted the NDA which had planned to meet the President to pressurise the government on this issue. After some thought, the BJP has decided that it will use the Soren resignation to continue with its campaign against the other "tainted" ministers. A NDA delegation will meet the President on Sunday with a memorandum, party sources said.
But in the run-up to Soren''s resignation, the PM appears to have been as much the victim of an aggressive no hold-barred campaign by the NDA as faulty political analysis by the Congress.
Highly placed sources said that the PM''s first instinct had been to demand his resignation as soon as the warrant was served on Soren in this regard, but a letter from Soren saying that he was the victim of Congress machinations, in which he named a senior MP and minister from Jharkhand, backed by political feedback from the Congress itself made the PM pause.
The feedback was that the BJP was playing a "double game" with the intention of breaking the Congress-JMM alliance ahead of the Assembly polls in some states early next year and, therefore, to sack Soren before the court had indicted him would be to fall into a trap of the BJP''s making, especially since JMM had been a member of the BJP led NDA.
It was also pointed out that while the BJP was running an aggressive campaign at the Centre, its members in Jharkhand were soft-peddling the issue.
Eventually, the relentless pressure from the NDA, which included a personal attack on himself and the Speaker made think again. In the Rajya Sabha last week, former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi''s remark: "Is the PM also absconding?" upset Singh so much so that he is reported to have said: "I am sick and tired of this," to his close associates. Then came the psychological assault on Chatterjee.
On Friday evening, after the Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die for three weeks, the PM called a meeting at 7, Race Course Road, attended by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and HRD minister Arjun Singh. The meeting finally called for Soren''s resignation.
Following this directive, Soren faxed his resignation to his son who, in turn, "photocopied" it and handed it to PM Manmohan Singh on Saturday. The letter has been forwarded to the President for acceptance.
BJP vice president Mukthar Abbas Naqvi said everybody wanted to know Soren''s whereabouts and since Soren''s personal staff knew it and had forwarded Singh''s letter to him, people were curious to know whether the PM was also aware of it.
Regretting that Singh took over 10 days to take a decision regarding his cabinet minister, Naqvi said people were beginning to have doubts about whether the PM would be able to deal with the country''s security.