Ranchi
Induction of a section of JMM and Congress MLAs, disgruntled for being left out in the Champai Soren Government, is the highlight of the Hemant 3.0 dispensation. And for the first time since 2014 all the 11 Ministerial berths have been filled up. In the last 10 years, one cabinet berth always remained vacant. The swearing-in ceremony was held at the Raj Bhawan after Hemant won the vote of confidence earlier in the day. Allocation of portfolios has since been done.
JMM MLA from Latehar Baidyanath Ram, who had publicly voiced his resentment after being left out in the Champai dispensation, has made his way into the Cabinet. Similarly, Congress MLAs Deepika Pandey Singh and Irfan Ansari, who had openly revolted and even dashed off to Delhi to air their grievances, have been inducted from the ally’s quota.
Ram made his entry at the expense of Basant Soren, younger brother of Hemant Soren, apparently to blunt the BJP’s attack that he was promoting family interests. He is now Minister for School Education & Literacy, and Excise & Prohibition (a post he had earlier held as a JD (U) MLA when the NDA was in power). His old JMM ministerial faces, Mithilesh Kumar Thakur, Baby Devi, Hafizul Hassan and Dipak Birua remain unchanged and so are their portfolios.
The Congress, on the other hand, replaced Badal (Patralekh) with Deepika Pandey Singh and incarcerated former minister Alamgir Alam with Irfan Ansari. The other two old Congress ministerial faces Rameshwar Oraon (Finance, Planning & Development, Parliamentary Affairs and Commercial Taxes) and Banna Gupta (Health) remain unchanged. Banna also has Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs.
The lone RJD MLA Satyanand Bhokta will continue to be a Minister in the new government too with his Labour portfolio. He is now also the Industry Minister.
The induction of the disgruntled MLAs from the both the sides has apparently been made to keep the pack together ahead of the Assembly elections, which will be held a few months later.
Interestingly, former Chief Minister Champai Soren readily took the oath of office and secrecy in the new Hemant cabinet. Precedence suggest that the Chief Ministers usually don’t like becoming a Minister in the State government. While he was the former Transport and ST, SC & OBC Welfare Minister, he is now the new Water Resources and Higher & Technical Education Minister.
Champai had on July 3 resigned as the Chief Minister to pave for Hemant’s return at the helm. He was sworn in as the 13th chief minister of Jharkhand on July 4.
For his part, Hemant has kept for himself the portfolios of Personnel, Home, Road Construction, Building Construction and Cabinet besides all such Departments which are not allocated to any Minister.
Earlier, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren won the vote of confidence in the State Assembly even as the Opposition grouping of BJP and AJSU legislators staged a walk out.
Box
Thereafter, the Chief Minister also presided over a cabinet meeting where it was resolved to set up an inquiry commission to critically analyse the woes of families affected by mining activities across the state and suggest corrective measures accordingly. Displacements and other likely impacts in the coming days will be given special attention. Talking to news persons, Hemant said a data base too will be prepared in due course. He added that hereon all his Ministers will begin their work in full swing. He also said that his government was ready for talks with agitating auxiliary police.
