Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Sunday denied any rift with ally Congress, speaking a day after meeting Sonia Gandhi, and said a joint candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls would be announced in Ranchi soon.

“We had our legislature party meeting yesterday and before taking any decision onthe Rajya Sabha polls we talk to our allies,” Soren, executive president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), told reporters here.

“I discussed many political subjects with Soniaji for more than an hour and we agreed on some points. The announcement will be made in Ranchi…. That is our power centre.”

There has been constant bickering between the Congress and the JMM in Jharkhand. After the recent Enforcement Directorate raids to investigate the alleged embezzlement of rural job scheme funds over a decade ago, Congress leader and state financeminister Rameshwar Oraon had said the ED wouldn’t be needed if the state police did their job.

Jharkhand will elect two Rajya Sabha members on June 10. The JMM and the BJP-Ajsu alliance have the numbers to elect one MP each.The Congress has been push¬ing the JMM support a Con¬gress candidate. The JMM leg¬islature party has authorised Soren and his father Shibu Soren, the party supremo, to decide.

“If we had any rift, would Soniaji and I have met for more than an hour?” HemantSoren said to reporters’ queries. He did not reveal whether the candidate would be fielded on a JMM ticket or aCongress ticket.

Soren had, however, kept the speculation about a rift alive by beginning the news conference with the remark: “People like us find it hard to find space in Delhi. But waterfinds its path.”

On the ED investigations, he said: “The BJP did not justlose power but also their presence in Jharkhand. Their suffering is natural…. Like whathappened to Shah Rukh Khan’s son, I see the ED probelike that.”

The Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday exonerated Shah Rukh’s son Aryan in a drugs case in connection withwhich the young man had spent 26 days in jail and was vilified in the media.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment on Saturday that he had not doneanything for people to “hang their heads in shame”, Soren said: “Only if he had let peoplehold their heads high would the question arise of hanging their heads. Inflation is killingus.”

On the survival of his government, he said: “What can one do about thuggery? I believe that there is still some rule of law. They may try to subvert the Constitution but what will they do (with) thosewho have already read the Constitution?”