Shibu Soren resigns as Jharkhand chief minister

RANCHI: An isolated Shibu Soren tonight resigned as Jharkhand chief minister after failing to get the support of Congress and its ally JVM(P) ahead of Monday’s trust vote in the assembly. Soren met Governor M O H Farooq and submitted his resignation. Soren has been asked to continue as caretaker chief minister till an alternate arrangement is made, Principal Secretary to the Governor Sudhir Tripathi said. With odds stacked against him, Soren, who has been holding on to hispost after reneging on a power-sharing deal with the BJP, made overtures to theCongress which was not forthcoming. "We appealed to the politicalparties to support the Soren Government in the interest of the state and toprevent imposition of President's rule. Till tonight, nobody has come forward,"Deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahto told reporters at Raj Bhavan after Soren putin his papers.Mahto said, "We learnt that all these parties havedecided to vote against the Government tomorrow during the floor test."Mahto, leader of JMM ally, AJSU, said in the light of thesedevelopments, the two coalition partners met today and decided that the chiefminister should resign on "moral grounds". The JMM, which has 18MLAs, needs the support of 42 members to sail through the confidence vote in the82-member assembly. The government has the support of 25 MLAs -- JMM-18, AJSU-5and Independent 2. Soren was pinning his hopes of getting thesupport of Congress with 14 MLAs and its ally Jharkhand VikasMorcha(Prajatantric) having 11 legislators to sail through the trust vote.BJP with 18 MLAs and JD(U) with two had withdrawn support to theSoren government after Soren had backed the UPA government by voting against cutmotions sponsored by the opposition in the Lok Sabha. BJP's decisioncame after Soren backtracked on a power sharing deal under which Arjun Mundawould have led a BJP-led government for 28 months and the JMM would rule for theremaining period. The Congress chose not to reveal its strategy,saying it would take a decision alongwith JVM(P) only tomorrow, adding toSoren's frustration. Last week, the JVM-P leadership had said theywould vote against the Soren government. The strength of the otherparties in the house is: RJD - 5, CPI (ML-Liberation) - one, MarxistCoordination Committee - one, Jharkhand Party - one, Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch- one and Independents - two, besides a nominated MLA. The loneCPI-ML-liberation MLA, Vinod Kumar Singh has already announced to vote againstthe trust vote.