New Delhi: After Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate following a long drawn probe into a land scam case, the top leaders of Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive (INDI) Alliance held a meeting to discuss the upcoming strategy on Wednesday evening. 

The meeting at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence was attended by Sonia Gandhi, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and DMK leader T R Baalu, among others.

The leaders of the INDI alliance also called the arrest of Hemant Soren an intimidating tactic of the ruling BJP-government. Kharge called the arrest “a blow to federalism”. “Intimidating opposition leaders by making the provisions of PMLA draconian is part of the BJP's tool kit. The BJP's work of destabilizing the opposition governments one by one as part of a conspiracy is continuing. What went into the BJP's washing machine is clean as white, what didn't go is tainted? If democracy has to be saved from dictatorship then BJP will have to be defeated,” said Kharge in a post on X. 

Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is a constituent of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), formed by more than two dozen opposition parties to take on the BJP unitedly in the Lok Sabha elections due in April-May.

Hemant Soren was arrested on Wednesday in a money laundering case linked to the land scam case after resigning as the Jharkhand chief minister, while state transport minister Champai Soren's name was proposed as the new CM.