FLIGHT TO THE FORT

Minutes after seeing off a chartered flight from Ranchi to Raipur with 32 MLAs of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on board, Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday evening described it as a "glimpse of our strategy to counter the conspirators".

- Amitabh Srivastava

He was leaving no one in doubt about what he meant: that he had sniffed a conspiracy to poach his MLAS, and had acted accordingly. He called it "ran-niti (strategy)", but making his MLAs leave the state actually summed up t the state of uncertainty that has gripped Jharkhand's ruling JMM-Congress-RJD alliance. The flight to Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, where the MLAs are expected to be safer from alleged poaching attempts by the opposition BJP, shows a degree of nervousness. Hardly misplaced too. Since August 25, when reports came in about the Election Commission (EC) recommending Soren's disqualification as an MLA, Jharkhand has looked likely to join the list of states where the BJP has managed to topple an elected government of its rivals.