‘Missing’ Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren holds meeting in Ranchi: Top updates

Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials visited Hemant Soren's residence in Delhi but claimed that they could not locate the chief minister.

A day after a political row erupted over the whereabouts of Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader chaired a meeting with ministers of his ruling coalition on Tuesday.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren during a meeting with state cabinet ministers and MLAs in Ranchi on January 30. (PTI)

The meeting comes amid allegations by the BJP that the JMM chief was "absconding" to avoid the Enforcement Directorate's probe into an alleged land scam case.

People close to the CM have said that Soren was “around Delhi" for legal consultation, and stressed that there was no need for ED to come “looking” for him since he had already conveyed to the federal agency that he was available to appear before them at 1 pm on Wednesday

Here's what has happened so far in Jharkhand:

• On Monday, Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials visited Soren's residence in Delhi in connection with an alleged land scam case but claimed that they could not locate the chief minister. The ED had earlier summoned the chief minister in connection with a money laundering case linked to the alleged land scam.
• The ED also seized a luxury car and ₹ ₹36 lakh cash and some ‘incriminating documents’ from Soren’s Delhi resident.
• Even as the ED continued its hunt for the Jharkhand chief minister, Soren reached Ranchi after travelling almost 1300 km by road, people close to him said.
• He chaired a meeting with ministers of his ruling coalition on Tuesday morning and also sought time to the Governor Radhakrishnan after the latter said he has no information about the chief minister’s whereabouts.
• State minister Banna Gupta, after meeting the chief minister, told ANI that the party is remained unitedly behind the CM. "All of us are united. CM is coming. It is the death anniversary of Bapu...The assassins of Bapu are alive even today and are murdering democracy. He (CM) is very confident. Read his face, you are all journalists," he told ANI.
• Meanwhile, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure prohibiting public gatherings was imposed within a 100-metre radius of Soren, the governor’s residences, and ED’s Ranchi office a day before the agency was expected to question the chief minister at his residence.
• BJP leader Nishikant Dubey accused Soren of destroying the honour and respect of Jharkhand’s people by going "missing".
• "A big advice to those who are doing wrong on the instructions of Chief Minister Hemant Soren ji, the CM is proving himself to be a fugitive, running away from facing the investigating agency, the man is facing insults in the country and abroad all day long. How will that man protect the officers or the people of the state?" Dubey wrote on X.