What transpired in Jharkhand over yesterday must have been too much for the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Sonia Gandhi remained invisible and didn't say a thing but the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs met and discussed and asked Shibu Soren to step down. Thereafter it was all about damage control. Shibu Soren invoked the by now famous "inner voice" or conscience - one is entitled to ask where the hell the conscience was all these days - and resigned. The Governor invited BJP's Arjun Munda to form the Government.
Soren resigns, Munda invited to form government
However all will not be well in Jharkhand for months to come. Goa was in a similar situation. BJP government will depend entirely on the support of the five independents. All of them have already been promised ministries by the BJP high command - rather openly. Like Goa's Manohar Parrikar, Arjun Munda will find the behavious of one independent unpalatable at some point in time, but will be hard pressed to drop him.
BJP will attempt to swallow some of the independents and pressure them into joining their party. The independents will not like it. You see, they are stronger as long as they are outside. Once they join the party, their independence goes off and they will attract the wrath of disqualification, if they want to withdraw the support to the party. But still, there will be an elected government in place. It may even fall before completing the full term of 5 years.
Shibu Soren may still come back down the line as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand after engineering resignations, defections etc. Yet, that would still be infinitely preferable to what he and Syed Sibtey Razi tried to put together over the last three weeks.
Good luck Jharkhand!
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