Hemant Is A Big Boy Now

This piece does not explicitly refer to the Lok Sabha elections, but I believe the events described towards the end will have a bearing on the polls.

Ranchi, February 19

Hemant Soren might as well have stuck an aerial to his head: since the first day of his tenure, he has been taunted as being remote-controlled.

There was the father. Shibu Soren may be ageing, but is still easily the most popular leader in Jharkhand. He is doting enough to let his son play pull-down-governments but JMM’s leaders do not necessarily share the love and still prefer their Guruji with complaints and for counsel.

Then, there was the Congress. Union Minister Jairam Ramesh’s frequent visits to state have irked even his party’s leaders. At some point, Ramesh came to be called a second chief minister; someone who pulls strings from Delhi.

The inexperienced Hemant, on his first term as state legislator – he was a Rajya Sabha member for five-odd months before being elected – found a mentor in finance minister Rajendra Prasad. The Congress leader also handles parliamentary affairs and leads the counter-attacks the Opposition’s ire in the House. As an orator, Hemant is at best a strong room of stock phrases.

There has always been a ruthless streak about Hemant Soren: insisting that Mathura Prasad Mahato – a Shibu loyalist and old-timer who threatened to leave the party when the son went all-out to bring down Arjun Munda’s government – had to be kept out of his cabinet, for instance. The CM then inducted the timid Jai Prakash Bhai Patel, all of 31, to his council of ministers. Mahato had no defence; Patel was his son-in-law, after all.

Of late, that steel is more in evidence. When the RJD and the Congress came to an understanding on the Rajya Sabha polls on January 28, they went to Hemant to complain about the JMM naming a candidate. Savita Mahato, a Shibu Soren choice, was sent back to Jamshedpur after she made the trip to file nomination papers. Three Kurmi MLAs, led by Mathura Mahato, subsequently submitted their resignations to the senior Soren, but had to withdraw them after the party remained indifferent.

A week back, Congress minister Chandra Sekhar “Dadai” Dubey began verbally attacking the CM. The Congress did not discipline Dubey; Hemant looked weak and unable to respond. Dubey seemed to be on a mission to get himself ousted and succeeded with a truism: he said that Hemant was chief minister only because his father was Shibu Soren.

The nature of the ouster was interesting. Dubey had already been asked by his party to resign and he has claimed that he was going to do so. But Hemant, already been to Delhi to complain to Congress leaders, recommended at 10.30 in the morning on February 19 that Dubey be sacked. That meant the government went to the opening of its first Budget session that morning a foot soldier short.

He may be coming of age by cutting of heads instead of standing on the shoulders of giants, but Hemant Soren seems to be doing whatever it takes to survive in Jharkhand’s dog-eat-dog politics.