Former Jharkhand CM Champai Soren Joins BJP Days After Resigning From JMM

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Ranchi on Friday. Soren along with a large number of his supporters switched over to the saffron camp in the presence of union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in Ranchi.

The development came days after the tribal leader met the union home minister Amit Shah and resigned from the JMM.

While welcoming the 67-year-old tribal leader in saffron camp, Chouhan said that the Tiger of Jharkhand has joined the BJP to remove the corrupt Jharkhand government from power.

“Champai Soren worked very hard for the creation of Jharkhand and he dedicated his life to the service of the public. He has joined the BJP to remove the corrupt Jharkhand government from power. We welcome him. ‘Tiger abhi zinda hai’. He is the Tiger of Jharkhand and we will form the government in Jharkhand…” he said.

WHAT LED CHAMPAI’S EXIT FROM JMM?

A close aide of JMM supremo Shibu Soren, Champai was anointed to the top post after Hemant Soren was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case. Champai stepped down from the post on July 3 after Hemant Soren was granted bail by Jharkhand High Court.

He was unhappy with the way he was unceremoniously removed from the Chief Minister’s post to make way for Hemant Soren to become CM again.

He complained in close quarters that he felt “insulted” by the way he was removed, say sources. He is a tribal leader who had always been a perpetual “chief minister-in-waiting”. He is an Adivasi by birth and a loyalist of the Soren family.

He earlier hinted that he might float a new political party in the run-up to the state assembly elections.

“I will not retire from politics. In the new chapter that I have started, I’ll strengthen the new organisation and if I find a good friend in the way, I’ll move ahead with that friendship to serve the people and state… Everything will become clear in a week…,” the senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader said shortly after he reached his ancestral village Jhilingora in Seraikela-Kharsawan district post midnight last week.

There were speculations that he might switch to the saffron camp. Lobin Hembrom, former JMM MLA who fought as a rebel candidate in the Lok Sabha election, had told a media organisation that Champai Soren is in touch with BJP leadership, adding that the time has come to oppose ‘parivarvaad’ or dynasty politics. Hembrom was recently disqualified as a JMM MLA under the anti-defection law.

WHO IS CHAMPAI SOREN?

Champai 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.

He served as a cabinet minister in the BJP government headed by Arjun Munda between September 2010 to January 2013.

When Hemant Soren formed his second government in the state in 2019, Champai Soren became the Minister of Food and Civil Supplies and Transport.