JMM chief Shibu Soren talks to party MLAs during a meeting at his residence in Ranchi on Wednesday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, April 23: JMM chief Shibu Soren today said that his party would not topple the Madhu Koda-led UPA government.

“Let others throw it out if they want. We have to run the government,” Soren said after holding a meeting with his party legislators.

Maintaining that the state government’s performance was satisfactory, he attributed the tardy progress to the mismanagement in execution of the projects.

He also said that the Congress had not spoken to him over the issue of withdrawing support from the Koda government. Soren was reacting to Congress’s Jharkhand affairs in-charge Ajay Maken’s statement that he was trying to convince the UPA partners to withdraw support from the Koda government.

“I have asked my MLAs to be prepared for mid-term elections,” he said.

Significantly, only nine of the 17 JMM MLAs attended the meeting. The truant MLAs included Salkhan Soren, Mathura Prasad Mahto, Sushila Hansda, Haru Razwar, Munna Lal, Sukhram Oraon and Sufal Marandi.

Deputy chief minister Sudhir Mahto is currently on a foreign tour.

Soren was holding the meeting with his legislators for the first time after 10 of his MLAs did not cast vote for the official nominee of the JMM in the last Rajya Sabha election.

Though Soren refused to comment, the JMM legislature party leader Champai Soren said that the defaulting MLAs had valid reasons to do so and had communicated about their absence to them in advance.

Champai Soren said that the meeting veered around strengthening the organisation of the party to take up fresh challenges. The JMM chief said that the party’s central committee and general body meeting would be held on April 29 and April 30, respectively.

Soren asked the MLAs to camp in their constituency to solve the problems of the electorate. They should also speed up the development programmes taking help from the ministers, he added.