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Hemant Soren takes oath as Jharkhand CM day after Champai Soren's resignation
Hemant Soren takes oath as Jharkhand CM day after Champai Soren's resignation
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha executive president Hemant Soren on Thursday took oath as Jharkhand chief minister day after Champai Soren stepped down from the post months ahead of the assembly election.
“Today is July 4. On Jan 31, from the same place, I conveyed a message to you all on how the opposition has conspired against me. They were successful. For five months, they tried to keep me inside the jail by different means. We took the legal path and people supported us,” Soren had said before taking oath.
Soren on Wednesday met governor CP Radhakrishnan at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi and formally staked claim to form the government, this after his predecessor Champai Soren tendered his resignation.
“A few days ago, I was made the Chief Minister and I got the responsibility of the state. After Hemant Soren was back, our alliance took this decision, and we chose Hemant Soren as our leader. Now, I have resigned from the post of Chief Minster,” Champai Soren had said.
"Thank you His Excellency the Governor. The end of the anti-democracy conspiracy hatched by the opposition has begun. Satyamev Jayate," Hemant Soren wrote on X ahead of his swearing-in.
Champai Soren took over as CM temporarily on February 2, days after the JMM executive chief had stepped down before being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam.
Soren, 48, was granted bail by the Jharkhand high court on June 28 after spending five months in jail. "The court has held that prima facie he is not guilty of the offence and there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing an offence when on bail," Soren's senior counsel Arunabh Chowdhury had told PTI.
Hemant Soren's return as CM will bolster the JMM, which won three seats in the tribal-dominated state of Jharkhand in the Lok Sabha elections.
In 2019, JMM fought the assembly elections in alliance with the Congress and Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) and got a comfortable majority with forty-seven seats in the 81-member house.
JMM won 30 seats, while Congress and RJD secured 16 and one seat respectively in the state elections.
