Hemant Soren Arrested, Champai Soren Sworn In As New Jharkhand CM

Hemant Soren, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, was arrested in a case involving land scams and money laundering. He was taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on January 31. 

The Supreme Court decided not to stop his arrest. His lawyers, Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi argued in court about this but were told to seek help from the Jharkhand High Court instead.

Following this, Champai Soren from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party has been sworn in as the new Chief Minister in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand. 

Along with him, Alamgir Alam from Congress and Satyanand Bhokta from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) also became ministers. They all took their oaths at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi.

This change in leadership is happening while Jharkhand is facing a lot of political changes because of Hemant Soren’s arrest. 

After the swearing-in ceremony, many lawmakers went to Hyderabad as there will be a floor test in the assembly soon. 

This test is important for the new government to prove that they have enough support from the legislators to stay in power.

In the Jharkhand assembly, which has 81 members, JMM has 29 seats, and their ally Congress has 17. RJD and CPI (ML) have one seat each. They have the support of 43 MLAs in total. 

The opposition includes Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 26 seats, AJSU with 3, and a few independents and others. There’s also one vacant seat.

Governor CP Radhakrishnan asked Champai Soren to form the government. Champai Soren, who has been an MLA seven times and represents the Seraikella constituency, was the state transport minister before this. He was also an independent MLA before joining JMM.

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Hemant Soren met Governor Radhakrishnan and resigned after being questioned by the ED for over six hours. The questioning was about the money laundering linked to the land scam.

Now, Champai Soren, as the new Chief Minister, has to show that he has enough support in a floor test in the assembly, which will happen in the next 10 days.