Edited by Deepali Verma
A day after Jharkhand Transport Minister Champai Soren’s appointment was finalised by the Governor C P Radhakrishnan following Hemant Soren’s resignation and arrest, the senior JMM leader took oath as the new Chief Minister on February 2.
Champai Soren has been granted 10 days to prove his government’s majority. Congress chief Rajesh Thakur, whose party is a constituent of the JMM-led alliance, remarked, “We stand in unity and our alliance is very strong. No one can break it,” said Champai Soren.
The top court has refused to entertain Hemant Soren’s petition contesting his arrest on money laundering charges. Rather, the top court asked him to approach the jurisdictional high court. “We will not be entertaining the present writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India and therefore, leave it open to the petitioner to approach the jurisdictional high court as per the provisions of the Article 226 of the Constitution of India,” said a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, M M Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi.
Champai Soren, a 67-year-old veteran of the Jharkhand statehood movement, is one of the senior-most leaders in JMM and has held several key portfolios including that of welfare and transport.
Born to a family of farmers in Jilingagoda village in Saraikela-Kharsawan district, Soren grew up in the midst of scarcity and joined the movement for a separate Jharkhand quite young. “He was always drawn to the welfare of the people of the village, particularly the Adivasis. This is one of the reasons why he did not study after Class 10 and immersed himself in the Jharkhand movement,” said a source who has known the JMM leader for a long time.
