In its opinion shared with the Governor on August 25, the EC is believed to have recommended Soren's disqualification over assigning a mining lease to himself, while he headed the department himself. (Twitter/@jhar_governor)Yet to make public a recommendation by the Election Commission on action to be taken against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren over his ownership of a mining lease, more than two months after it was sent, Governor Ramesh Bais on Wednesday indicated action on the matter, saying in an interview that “atom bomb could explode any time in Jharkhand”.
In the interview to Bharat 24-Vision of New India news channel at his hometown Raipur, Bais also said he had asked for “a second opinion” on the issue.
However, sources in both the Raj Bhavan at Ranchi and the Election Commission in Delhi said they had no information about any such opinion being sought or received.
In its opinion shared with the Governor on August 25, the EC is believed to have recommended Soren’s disqualification over assigning a mining lease to himself, while he headed the department himself. Bais is yet to make this opinion public, despite the ruling JMM repeatedly asking him to do so. The JMM-Congress coalition has claimed that the BJP is trying to put together numbers to topple its government, and hence buying time on the issue through the Governor.
A source in the Raj Bhavan said: “Neither has the decision by the EC sent to the panel again for a second view, nor to anyone else. It cannot be sent again to anyone.”
A senior EC official said that the commission had not received any representation from the Jharkhand Governor for a second opinion. S K Mendiratta, a retired legal advisor with the EC, said he had not seen Bais’s statement. “However, to my knowledge, no Governor has ever sent back any EC opinion or sought any second opinion. Under the Constitution, only the EC can give opinion on such references from a governor.”
Former Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat also said that there was no provision in the law for a second opinion. “The law is very clear that the opinion of the EC is binding on a governor or the President, whatever may be the case. The Supreme Court said in the case of (an appeal to disqualify) 12 BJP MLAs of Manipur that the governor ‘shall’ proceed accordingly after receiving the EC’s opinion,” Rawat said.
Asked in the interview by the channel about accusations of him doing “vendetta politics” and trying to “destabilise” the Jharkhand government, Bais said: “I could have taken a decision based on the recommendation of the Election Commission, if at all I had such intentions. But, I didn’t want to take any action to defame anyone or with an intention of vendetta… I am holding a Constitutional post… No one should point fingers at me saying I have acted out of revenge. Therefore, I have asked for a second opinion.”
Asked if a big decision could come after receiving the second opinion, the Governor said: “Bursting crackers is banned in Delhi but not in Jharkhand. Maybe one atom bomb could explode there.”
Recently, addressing a press conference, CM Soren said this was a unique case in which “a criminal or an accused” is seeking punishment while the Constitutional authorities that should have pronounced the judgment are silent. “The prevalent situation is no less than a punishment to me. I have been saying that if I have committed a crime, how am I allowed to hold a Constitutional post,” he said.
Central to the controversy is a Letter of Intent given to Hemant Soren’s firm for a stone chips mining lease in Ranchi’s Argora area on June 26, 2021. On April 8 this year, Jharkhand Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan told the Jharkhand High Court that the state government had committed “a mistake” and the lease had been surrendered.
The BJP had approached Bais with a formal complaint on the matter, and he had sought the opinion of the EC. After this, the EC had issued a notice to Soren in May, seeking his response to the complaint that the CM had, prima facie, violated Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act, which prohibits elected representatives from entering into any contract with the government for “supply of goods” or “execution of any works undertaken” by it.
– With inputs from Damini Nath, New Delhi