Ranchi, Sunday, December 27, 2009: Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo Shibu Soren on Saturday staked claim to form government in Jharkhand after meeting Governor K Sankaranarayanan. He handed over the letters of support of 42 legislators against the minimum requirement of 41 in a House of 81.

This will be the third time that Soren will become the chief minister of the state since its inception in November 2000. The first time he became CM was in 2005 for nine days and then again for about four months in 2008.

With this, all speculation about the possibilities of an alliance between BJP and JMM, which are poles apart ideologically, came to an end, though this could well lead to a rift within both BJP and JMM.
JMM, which had won 18 seats in the Assembly polls, got the support of BJP (18), All Jharkhand Students’ Union (5) and Independent Bandhu Tirkey taking the total tally to 42. JMM, however, was not able to submit the letter of support of Janata Dal(United), BJP’s pre-poll ally that has two MLAs in the House.

After handing over the letters of support, both Soren and Sankaranarayanan had a closed-door, one-to-one meeting for five minutes. But no one revealed what was discussed.

Coming out of Raj Bhavan after staking claim, Soren said he had submitted the letter of support to the governor and now it was for Raj Bhavan to do the rest. “I have submitted the letters of support and will form government for the development of the state,” said Soren.