CPM politburo member Brinda Karat has alleged that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former chief minister Hemant Soren as the JMM refused to join hands with the BJP.

The former Rajya Sabha member, who was in Ranchi to oversee the CPM state committee meeting, on Tuesday told the media that the BJP had coined a new slogan “hamare sath aao, ya jail jao” (come with us, or go to jail) against senior Opposition leaders and Soren was a victim to this slogan.

“They have a new slogan hamare sath aao, ya jail jao ahead of the Lok Sabha polls (scheduled later this year) and Hemant Soren was a victim as he refused to join them and is under arrest by the ED. There is clearly no case against him and the charges are manufactured just to intimidate and bully him,” she alleged.

She asserted that the language used by BJP leaders in Delhi against Soren was “shocking, shameful and insulting”.

“They called him an absconder. How can such language be used about an elected chief minister?” Karat added.

Significantly, JMM’s lone Lok Sabha MP from Rajmahal Vijay Hansda, considered close to Soren, had claimed at Dumka during the 45th foundation day celebration of the JMM that their executive president paying the price for rejecting BJP’s offer.

“Our leader Hemant Soren wilfully chose a difficult path by rejecting the BJP’s offer. But we are certain that he would come out stronger from the conspiracy hatched by the BJP. Hemant Soren has stood true to JMM’s identity of being born out of struggle and movement,” Hansda had told reporters at Dumka on February 2.

Soren was arrested by the ED on January 31 from the Raj Bhavan.