Bandhu Tirkey defies Babulal Marandi, doesn’t reply to notice

RANCHI: Defying JVM-P’s diktat, Mandar MLA Bandhu Tirkey did not respond to the show-cause notice issued to him for allegedly canvassing for Congress’s Hatia candidate in the recently concluded Jharkhand assembly election.
JVM-P general secretary Abhay Kumar Singh said the party did not receive Tirkey’s response till Monday evening. Served a notice on Saturday evening, Tirkey was asked to explain his act within 48 hours.
“The time-frame given to Bandhu-ji has already expired. Disciplinary action, if any, will be taken by Tuesday evening if he does not respond by tomorrow morning,” Singh told TOI.
JVM-P said, Tirkey campaigned for Congress’s Hatia candidate Ajay Nath Shahdeo. JVM-P also claimed it received reports that Tirkey did not attend election meetings organised by the party’s candidate Shobha Yadav despite repeated requests. Tirkey allegedly also asked tribal voters to not vote for Yadav because she does not hail from the tribal community. Hatia went to vote on December 12. The seat was won by BJP’s Navin Jaiswal. Yadav, the JVM-P contender, was the chief of the party’s women wing when she contested the polls.
Speaking to TOI from Ranchi’s Bero block on Monday evening, Tirkey admitted to have canvassed for Shahdeo. “I was holding an election meeting when he (Shahdeo), who was also canvassing in the same locality of the assembly constituency, dropped by. I spoke briefly for him,” he said. Tirkey claimed he did no wrong as JVM-P is a secular outfit and opposed to BJP. “Even the Congress is secular and was our ally during Lok Sabha polls,” he added.
The developments come at a time when it is being speculated that Tirkey is eyeing a switch-over to Congress in case JVM-P is merged with BJP. JVM-P’s notice to Tirkey came immediately after Marandi constituted the party’s new central working committee and named office-bearers of key posts. Tirkey, who was the general secretary till January 5 (the day the CWC and other committees were dissolved), was not given key posts in the new power structure.
When asked about the timing of the notice, Singh said: “On January 5, the leadership asked MLAs, office bearers and functionaries to apprise it about problems they faced during the polls. Soon after, Hatia candidate had filed her complaint against Tirkey in a sealed envelope handed over to party president Babulal Marandi.” On asked whether it’s the first step towards expelling Tirkey to facilitate a smooth merger into BJP, Singh said: “I won’t comment anything on the matter. Thoda intezaar kariye (Wait for sometime).”