Jharkhand cabinet ministers have been brought from Chhattisgarh capital Raipur to Ranchi by a chartered plane on Wednesday night to attend a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The governor is still silent on the reported disqualification of chief minister Hemant Soren.Sources in the chief minister’s secretariat confirmed that all the Congress cabinet ministers — health minister Banna Gupta, finance minister Rameshwar Oraon, rural development minister Alamgir Alam and agriculture minister Badal Patralekh, JMM leader and sports, youth affairs and minority minister Hafizul Hussain are back in Ranchi.

“They have been brought to Ranchi to attend the state cabinet meeting scheduled on Thursday evening. Several important decisions are likely to be taken at the cabinet meeting,” said the source.The source also informed that most of the cabinet ministers from JMM including tribal affairs and transport minister Champai Soren, drinking water and sanitation minister Mithilesh Thakur, education minister Jagarnath Mahato are present in Ranchi along with RJD leader and labour minister Satyanand Bhokta.

“The MLAs will stay back in Raipur. We have got some information about a strategy being adopted by the BJP to do horse-trading while keeping the disqualification issue alive. We have also got information that they are desperately trying to approach some UPA MLAs to topple the government by creating a narrative that there is no leader to lead the alliance after Hemant Soren,” said the source in the chief minister’s office.

A total of 41 persons, including 32 MLAs from Jharkhand were flown in on Tuesday to a private resort in Raipur.Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Wednesday told reporters in Raipur that the UPA coalition government in Jharkhand shifted its MLAs to Raipur to protect them from being poached in view of the BJP’s “horse-trading” tactics.

Baghel had met the MLAs at the resort on Tuesday night.Talking to reporters on Wednesday morning at Swami Vivekananda Airport in Raipur before leaving for Himachal Pradesh where he has been appointed as a senior observer by the Congress for the upcoming Assembly polls, Baghel said: “Alliance partners JMM and Congress in Jharkhand decided to bring their MLAs to Chhattisgarh to protect them considering the way the BJP has indulged in horse-trading.”

“Recently three MLAs (of Congress in Jharkhand) were arrested in Bengal (with cash). The Election Commission has sent some letters to Jharkhand Raj Bhavan and it has now been a week, but that communiqué is yet to be opened. It indicates something is cooking inside,” Baghel further said.

On BJP leader Raman Singh’s accusation that the Congress government in Chhattisgarh had turned the state into a “den of immoral acts,” Baghel asked why he did not say anything when the MLAs of other parties in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan were shifted (to the states ruled by the BJP).The ruling UPA coalition government in Jharkhand has 49 MLAs in the 81-member Assembly and also enjoys the support of CPI-ML MLA Vinod Singh.

Significantly, following a petition by the BJP seeking Soren’s disqualification from the Assembly in an office of profit case, the Election Commission sent its decision to state governor Ramesh Bais on August 25.Though the EC’s decision is not yet made official, there was a buzz that the poll panel had recommended the chief minister’s disqualification as an MLA. The Raj Bhavan did not announce anything on this matter since then.