Ranchi, Dec 28 (IANS) As Jharkhand prepares to get another coalition government, old friends have become foes while once bitter rivals are set to prop up Shibu Soren as the next chief minister.
The 2009 post-poll scenario is quite different from what one saw five years earlier.

In 2005, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Congress were together. The latter played a key role in the formation of the Shibu Soren government although the numbers were pitted against him.

When Soren took oath as chief minister, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sought the intervention of then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and the Supreme Court. Soren failed to prove his majority in the assembly — and quit.

Now the same BJP and JMM have come together.

Again in 2008, when Soren became chief minister, the Congress propped him up.

Initially, with more legislators in its kitty, the Congress did try its best to woo Soren and take power in the state. But Soren wanted to be the chief minister. The Congress did not want that to happen.

Eager to cut the Congress to size, the BJP hurriedly accepted his terms and joined hands with the JMM to provide a new government that will assume office Wednesday.

This is the same BJP that in 2005 made a hue and cry over Soren’s alleged criminal past.

In the 2009 assembly battle, the Congress cemented an alliance with former BJP chief minister Babulal Lal Marandi and his Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajanatyranrik (JVM-P).

The Congress terms Marandi a man of clean image. But the party’s view of him was different when he ruled Jharkhand, for the BJP, for two-and-a-half years.

The Congress and JVM-P won 25 of the 81 seats this time. They fell short of 16 seats to cross the half-way mark.

On the other hand, fighting in an alliance, the BJP and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) won 18 and two seats respectively. Now they have joined hands with JMM.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which was part of the Congress-JMM alliance, broke away before the 2009 assembly polls. The Congress did not include RJD — which now has five seats — in its pre-poll alliance.

Soren has also the support of the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), which too has five seats. This takes the number of legislators backing him to 43. Two independents support the JMM.

A key player in the new Soren-led government will be the very same BJP that stalled parliament over the JMM chief on many occasions in the past.