Hemant Soren fires minister who called him 'corrupt'

The BJP state unit demanded a probe into the allegations levelled by the sacked minister

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren Wednesday sacked his minister Chandrashekhar Dubey, who had recently described him as the "most corrupt chief minister in the history of Jharkhand", Raj Bhavan sources here said.

Dubey, a Congress minister in the alliance government headed by Soren, had a few days ago told media that Soren was the "most corrupt chief minister in the history of Jharkhand".

Chief Minister Soren later said: "A few issues have taken place in the last few days which have made impact on the bureaucracy and political parties. We are running an alliance government here and the decision to sack (Dubey) was taken with alliance partners' consent."

"We consulted the Congress leaders and Dubey was asked to quit by 10.30 a.m. When he did not quit... the chief minister recommended his dismissal to governor (Syed Ahmad)," Jharkhand Mukti Morcha core committee member Vinod Pandey told IANS.

Reacting on his dismissal, Dubey told reporters: "I was fed up in the Hemant Soren government. The countdown of Hemant Soren has begun."

"People will reply in the poll. I was raising the corruption issue taking place... I will go to New Delhi and speak to central leaders and will take final decision," he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party state unit demanded a probe into the allegations levelled by the sacked minister.

"The dismissal is unfortunate... a minister who was exposing the misdeeds of the government has been sacked," BJP legislator Raghubar Das told IANS.