By keeping a berth in the Cabinet vacant,Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has kept speculations live.

As per the law, Jharkhand can have a maximum of 12 ministers, including the Chief Minister.On December 28 Das took oath along with four ministers – C P Singh, Louis Marandi, Nilkanth Singh Munda and Chandraprakash Choudhary – can induct one more in his cabinet, which has only one minister from the BJP’s ally AJSU party.

On February 19, six Ministers – Saryu Roy, Ramchandra Chandravanshi, Raj Paliwar, Neera Yadav, Randhir Kumar Singh and Amar Kumar Bauri –were inducted into the Cabinet making 11 Ministers including the CM,leaving one vacancy.The question doing the rounds among politicians is why did Das do so?

There is no unanimity among them.Even Das has preferred not to answer this question.

However,a set of Opposition leaders told www.jharkhandstatenews.com that BJP has kept the vacancy to accommodate one of the four Congress MLAs –Manoj Yadav,Videsh Singh,Nirmla Devi and Irfan Ansari –in the Cabinet.

In fact,these Congress MLAs were believed to be in touch with the BJP.They can quit the grand old party and join BJP.”The delay is taking place because one more Congress MLA Badal Patralekh has shown interest.But the deal was not struck.This had left the BJP wait with a vacancy in the Cabinet.The rest others can be provided with posts in the state run PSUs”,said Saket Singh,a BJP worker.