After a stint of President’s Rule, Jharkhand is ready for crowning of its ninth Chief Minister on Saturday. JMM legislature party leader Hemant Soren will take oath of office at Raj Bhavan’s Birsa Mandap, along with one MlA each from coalition partners Congress and RJD.
ClP leader Rajendra Singh and RJD MlA Annapurna Devi are expected to accompany Soren. Nine other members of the Cabinet (Jharkhand has a quota of 12) would be sworn in after the coalition passes a floor test in Assembly on July 16, sources revealed. Raj Bhavan is ready for the swearing-in ceremony, which 1,500 senior Government officials, political leaders, MPs, MlAs, eminent personalities of the State and party supporters will attend. Raj Bhavan sources said the JMM, Congress and RJD had secured huge number of passes for their supporters.
Though, the Congress and RJD will take part in the ceremony, no senior leader or a Union Minister of the Congress is expected to attend. “On the recommendations of our Central leadership, JPPCC president Sukhdeo Bhagat has announced that ClP leader Rajendra Singh will take oath of office as a Minister in the coalition Government with Hemant taking oath as new CM,” said JPCC spokesperson Shailesh Sinha.
Hemant (37), son of JMM supremo Shibu Soren, has remained in active politics since 2005, when he made an effort to contest elections from Dumka. After that failure, he was elected as a Rajya Sabha member in 2009. In 2010, when he became the Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-led Government, he contested from Dumka again and was elected MlA.
On July 9, Hemant had claimed to form a Government in Jharkhand and handed over the letter of support of 43 MlAs of the Assembly to Governor Syed Ahmed. Hemant has support of 18 JMM MlAs, 13 Congress MlAs, five RJD MlAs and seven others.