The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party were on Thursday locked in a verbal duel after Jharkhand Mukti Morcha supremo Shibu Soren sought to remind his ally BJP of the "agreement" that the two ruling parties had on sharing power on "rotation" in Jharkhand during government formation in September last year.
''We have been maintaining that the BJP/JMM alliance is unnatural and with Guruji (Soren) reminding the BJP about their power sharing on rotational basis, it is a fall-out of An unnatural, unethical and opportunistic alliance," Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Commitee spokesman Radhakrishna Kishore said.
Hitting back, BJP's state unit vice-president Deepak Prakash said, "The BJP, JMM formed the alliance to stop the Congress, which has never fought for Jharkhand statehood.''
"Only the JMM and the BJP know how hard it had been to create Jharkhand. While JMM has fought for statehood, the BJP gave birth to Jharkhand during the National Democratic Alliance regime at the Centre," claimed Prakash, who quit the BJP along with former chief minister Babulal Marandi before rejoining the party a couple of years ago.
On Soren's claim that the BJP had agreed to share power with the JMM on a rotational basis, Prakash said, "There was no such agreement. We have formed the government with the promise of welfare of the state and its people."
Soren had on Wednesday claimed in Bokaro that the JMM and the BJP had an agreement that the JMM would share power after the first 28 months of the Arjun Munda government's tenure, which began on September 11, 2010.
Soren's statement bore significance in the wake of BJP's state unit president Dineshanand Goswami losing the July 1 Jamshedpur Lok Sabha by-poll, which had been vacated by Chief Minister Arjun Munda following his election from Kharsawan assembly constitution earlier this year.
Goswami lost to Babulal Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantric) candidate Ajay Kumar.
