Shibu Soren in Dhanbad on Sunday. Picture by Gautam Dey

Bokaro, April 6: Fuming at Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, JMM chief Shibu Soren today threatened the Congress to be prepared for “counterattack from his party”.

Soren could not control his temper this evening following news that the veteran politician was not included in the list of Union cabinet expansion.

“Now even UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi cannot say anything to me as the ball has slipped out of her hand. My party has a fixed quota of one cabinet minister and one state minister but look how I have been treated. Till morning, my name figured in the list of ministers who were to take oath but it was removed in the last hour just to embarrass me. Now I have to decide what should be the political move from my side, including going for new alignments. Time and again my party and I have suffered. In the first expansion of council of ministers my name was missing and later I was inducted. Now, after I have been exonerated from all the charges, still I have to suffer. JMM will not sit as beggars anymore but try to find its own way. The Congress will have to pay a heavy price which might even see a very few days of Madhu Koda as chief minister of Jharkhand,” Soren said.

“The Congress will have to pay a price for embarrassing JMM and people of this land. Even during the recent Rajya Sabha election, the role of Congress and other UPA partners were not up to the mark.”

Asked whether the UPA under his leadership will continue in the state, Soren, said: “It’s all bullshit now to talk about the coalition and UPA.”

“The shabby treatment JMM has received will definitely have big political repercussion which will be felt by Congress leaders at Delhi too. I am free to do anything, talk to anyone, including NDA leaders, who approached me many a time. Just wait for a few days and see how I act,” Soren told The Telegraph at his farmhouse in Chira Chas near Bokaro.