Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of upcoming Assembly elections in the state, sources said. Soren, who is currently serving as a minister in the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand government, is reportedly in contact with BJP leaders. According to sources, political circles are abuzz with speculation that former Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA Lobin Hembrom may also join the BJP along with Soren.
There are also speculations that several other JMM legislators might also abandon Hemant Soren's side. According to sources, these prominent JMM leaders have already reached Delhi to meet with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Although there has been no official confirmation from either party, the possibility of such a meeting has raised eyebrows in poll-bound state.
Champai Soren's appointment as the state chief minister in February to replace Hemant Soren was as dramatic as his exit from the post five months later. Soren, who once tilled fields with his father in a remote village in Jharkhand's Saraikela-Kharsawan district, took oath as the Chief Minister on February 2, days after his predecessor Hemant Soren resigned, just before he was arrested by the ED in a money laundering case. Hemant was released from jail on June 28 after the high court granted him bail, and on Wednesday, he was elected the party's legislature party leader. Champai submitted his resignation letter to the governor as chief minister to pave the way for Hemant Soren, who was sworn in as the Chief Minister for the third time.
Who is Champai Soren?
Sixty-seven-year-old tribal leader Champai Soren has earned the sobriquet 'Jharkhand's Tiger' for his contribution to the long fight for the creation of a separate state in the 1990s. Jharkhand was created from the southern part of Bihar in 2000. A matriculate from a government school, he started his political career by getting elected as an Independent MLA through a by-election from the Saraikela seat in undivided Bihar in 1991.
Four years later, he contested the assembly polls from the seat on the JMM ticket and defeated the BJP's Panchu Tudu. In the 2000 assembly elections, the first one held in the state, he was defeated from the same constituency by the BJP's Anant Ram Tudu. He regained the seat in 2005 by defeating the BJP candidate by a margin of only 880 votes. Champai Soren won the subsequent elections in 2009, 2014 and 2019.
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