Ranchi: The BJP legislature party will meet its MLA's in Ranchi today over the situation in Jharkhand.
The BJP still can't make up its mind as to what it wants to do in Jharkhand. The divisions are both over who should be Chief Minister and also over the question of whether the party should ally with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) or not.
With various leaders taking divergent positions, the Parliamentary Board, which met with BJP president Nitin Gadkari in the chair, decided to send two observers, senior general secretary Ananth Kumar and the former president Rajnath Singh to Ranchi on Tuesday to assess whom the legislature party wants as Chief Minister.
Ananth Kumar expressed confidence that a BJP-led government will be formed in Jharkhand "within a week".
Modalities for government formation and sharing of cabinet berths in Jharkhand were finalised with JMM on Saturday leaving two BJP leaders- Arjun Munda and Raghubar Das - squabbling for the top post.
Munda has been claiming support of nine tribal BJP MLAs and a few others while those backing Das argue that since JMM leader Hemant Soren is likely to be Deputy Chief Minister, a non-tribal should become CM. They also claim that if Munda becomes CM, a Lok Sabha seat would fall vacant. BJP has 18 MLAs in Jharkhand.
Party sources said the candidature of former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha has still not been ruled out and in case there is no consensus, he can emerge as the compromise candidate because of his stature.
In the 82-member Jharkhand Assembly, the new coalition will have 45 members. JMM and BJP have 18 members each, AJSU five and JD-U two. Two Independents are also in this grouping.
The political crisis in Jharkhand was triggered when Chief Minister Shibu Soren voted against BJP's cut-motion in Lok Sabha. This led BJP Parliamentary Board to decide on April 28 on withdrawing support to the government, a decision which was put on hold when Hemant Soren wrote a letter pledging support to a BJP-led government.