9 Congress MLAs head to Delhi, seek removal of 'its ministers'

9 Congress MLAs head to Delhi, seek removal of ‘its ministers’

RANCHI: As many as nine Congress MLAs headed to Delhi on Saturday evening to meet the AICC central leadership with a demand to “remove existing ministers” from the party quota in Champai Soren govt and replace them with new faces.

The move followed after a series of unsuccessful meetings of 12 dissident Congress MLAs since Friday’s oath-taking ceremony. Even on Saturday, MLAs went into a huddle several times at Circuit House and later at a city hotel before flying to Delhi. Hours before that, ally JMM’s Dumka MLA and newly inducted minister Basant Soren also met the upset Congress MLAs at the hotel as part of the coalition camp’s mediation attempts but to no avail.

Congress, part of the ruling camp, has 17 MLAs in its fold. Of them, barring four ministers, four MLAs stayed back due to other engagements. Source said three – Shilpi Neha Tirkey (Mandar), Purnima Neeraj Singh (Jharia) and Ramchandra Singh (Manika) are expected to go on Sunday while Poriyahat MLA Pradeep Yadav, who is also deputy leader in the assembly, is directly not part of the 12-member camp.

AICC has appointed Umang Singhar, MLA from Gandhwani (MP), as the observer for the current crisis in the Jharkhand camp and will hear out the agitated MLAs upon reaching Delhi on Sunday. The aggrieved MLAs are thinking of skipping the upcoming state budget session from February 23 and refrain from voting during the money bill if their demands aren’t met. The MLAs are upset over renomination of its four ministers for the remaining term in Champai Soren govt. Those who took oath as ministers from Congress included Alamgir Alam, Rameshwar Oraon, Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh.

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