Ranchi
JMM veteran and its legislative party leader Champai Soren was on Friday sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Jharkhand by Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan at the Raj Bhawan. In a late night development on Thursday, the Governor had invited Champai to form the Government, ending their wait
Alamgir Alam (Congress) and Satyanand Bhokta (RJD) were also sworn in as Cabinet Ministers to represent JMM’s alliance partners. The two were Ministers in the Hemant Soren government too.
Soon after his swearing-in, Champai paid floral tributes to tribal icons Birsa Munda and Sidho and Kanho and headed to the Secretariat to hold his first Cabinet meeting with Alam and Bhokta.
“Hemant Soren worked for the overall development of tribals. I will speed up the work started by him and we will complete the work on time to meet the aspirations of the people,” Champai said and alleged the Opposition sought to create instability in the State but it was failed by the strength of the alliance.
“We will participate in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’. He (Hemant Soren) is the leader of our party, he started many schemes for the development of the state and he will be successful in his fight for justice,” he further said. Later, he tweeted that he will work under the guidance of JMM patriarch Shibu Soren and try to implement the ideals of great tribal martyrs like Birsa Munda, Sidho-Kanho, Chand Bhairav and Tilka Manjhi among others to bring a change in the lives of the residents of the State.
Ironically, around the same time, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren was sent to 5-day ED custody after his 1-day custody ended and he failed to get any relief from the Supreme Court.
Jharkhand Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan said, “ED prayed for 10 days of remand but we objected to it. ED has been allowed only 5 days of remand. The order is yet to be uploaded. Our main concern is security (of Hemant Soren). The case is fake and the arrest is illegal.”
Hemant faced a setback as the Supreme Court refused to entertain a writ petition filed by him challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case related to an alleged land scam case.
The apex court asked Hemant to approach the Jharkhand High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution saying he was at liberty to seek expeditious listing of his petition before the High Court, which had deferred hearing on the matter till today given that the Supreme Court was to take it up.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal had on Thursday mentioned Hemant’s matter before a bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, who agreed to an urgent hearing today and following which a special bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi was constituted to hear the writ petition.
The floor test will be held on Monday (February 5). The ruling alliance is claiming the support of 47 MLAs but had 43 (two more than the required majority of 41) of them on a video roll call. Hemant’s sister-in-law Sita Soren and brother Basant Soren along with a couple of other MLAs have been missing from the action. But proving its majority should not be a problem for them.
After the oath-taking ceremony, 39 MLAs headed to the airport to fly out to Hyderabad, where a Congress government is in place now, to prevent “poaching” before the floor test. They could not leave on Thursday night due to bad weather conditions and had to disembark from the chartered planes and return from the airport.
The delay by the Governor in inviting Champai had unsettled the ruling alliance as JMM MP Mahua Maji said, “Champai Soren will take oath as CM of Jharkhand today. This is a big win for the party. BJP was fully prepared to impose the President’s Rule but that conspiracy was foiled. We have full faith in the court that CM (Hemant Soren) will return soon. Floor test will be conducted on Monday.”
Following the swearing-in, Jharkhand Governor Radhakrishnan said, “We always expect only one thing – the poorest among the poor should be served, we should do everything for fulfilling their basic needs, good roads, good drinking water, good schools, good healthcare and good houses. Finally, the irrigation facilities have to be improved all over the state so that the farmers get benefit and people get foodgrains at commodity price.”
