Himanta Sarma, BJP’s man for all reasons – from Northeast to Maharashtra and now, Jharkhand | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
Sarma is called upon by the party every time it needs to cobble up numbers or pull the rug from under the feet of tottering governments run by rival parties
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is known to rarely trust those who have migrated from other parties, especially when it comes to rolling out his meticulously planned missions. But within months of his leaving the Congress to join the BJP in 2015, Himanta Biswa Sarma had earned the confidence of both Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sarma, the Chief Minister of Assam, is now the BJP’s go-to man, called upon by the party every time it needs to cobble up seemingly impossible numbers or pull the rug from under the feet of tottering governments run by rival parties – from the Northeast to Maharashtra.
Now, he finds himself at the centre of the latest political crisis facing a state government: the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition government in Jharkhand. After three Congress MLAs were arrested allegedly with a huge amount of cash in West Bengal’s Howrah, Congress MLA Kumar Jaimangal Singh has filed a complaint accusing Sarma of playing a major role in the BJP’s alleged attempts to topple the state government. Sarma denied the allegations, saying he is in regular touch with many Congress leaders whom he referred as “old friends”.
Talking to The Indian Express, Sarma said, “It’s a false FIR and a baseless allegation. Because there is enough evidence on record that he (Jaimangal Singh) had met in Delhi last week also. My request to the Congress party is that it should not misuse the state police like this.”
Sarma’s political adeptness has seen the BJP leadership rope him in for its ‘Operation Lotus missions’ beyond the Northeast. Sarma had played a crucial role when the BJP moved in furtively to come to power in Maharashtra by dislodging the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition government, a mission that was obviously planned with extreme secrecy. Later, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had alleged that Sarma engineered the split in the party that led to Eknath Shinde taking 40 MLAs with him to the BJP camp.
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