Champai Soren To Take Oath As Jharkhand CM Today, Face Floor Test In Next 10 Days

New Delhi: Jharkhand Governor Shri C.P. Radhakrishnan on Thursday nominated JMM legislative party leader Champai Soren as the next Chief Minister and invited him to take oath on Friday. "Champai Soren to take oath as Jharkhand CM on 2nd February, floor test to take place in next 10 days," news agency ANI quoted CLP leader Alamgir Alam as saying. Soren had staked claim to form the government after meeting the Governor twice in the last two days. He submitted a letter of support from 43 legislators, which is more than the majority mark of 41 in the 79-member assembly. The letter of support included 19 legislators from JMM, 15 from Congress, 5 from RJD, 2 from AJSU, 1 from NCP and 1 independent.

The JMM-Congress-RJD alliance’s attempt to whisk away their MLAs to Hyderabad on Thursday night was thwarted by a stroke of bad luck. The flight was stuck at Ranchi airport due to dense fog and low visibility. “We have no fear of the BJP. We will confront them directly,” Jharkhand Minister Banna Gupta announced to the media as the MLAs came out of the airport. The MLAs were being shifted to a secure place in Hyderabad as the political crisis in Jharkhand continued.

Earlier, outside Ranchi airport, Jharkhand Minister and Congress state unit chief Rajesh Thakur asserted that the alliance had the required numbers to form the government. Earlier in the day, Champai Soren met Governor CP Radhakrishnan along with 43 MLAs of JMM, demonstrating a majority support enough to form government in the 81-member assembly state.

In another development, JMM leader and former chief minister Hemant Soren was remanded to one-day judicial custody by a special PMLA court in Ranchi, in relation to an alleged land scam case. Soren was nabbed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday night after six hours of interrogation in the money laundering case linked to the alleged land scam.