Cabinet expansion of Champai government - 8 ministers including Basant Soren took oath

Jharkhand Politics: Basant Soren, the youngest son of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief Shibu Soren, along with 7 other MLAs, on Friday took oath as ministers in the new government formed under the leadership of Champai Soren. Basant Soren is the younger brother of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. Hemant is currently in judicial custody in a money laundering case related to the alleged land scam. Among the new faces included in the 12-member Jharkhand cabinet are JMM's Chaibasa MLA Deepak Birua and Basant Soren from Dumka.

The swearing-in ceremony took place at the Birsa Pavilion of the Raj Bhavan and senior leaders of the JMM-led alliance and other government officials were also present. The Chief Minister said, “The allocation of departments will be done today. After giving responsibility to all the ministers, we will take the development work of Jharkhand forward.

Basant became MLA by defeating BJP's Louis Marandi from Dumka seat.

Basant Soren was elected MLA from Dumka seat in the by-election held in November 2020 by defeating BJP's Luis Marandi by 6,842 votes. In the 2019 elections for Jharkhand Assembly, Birua defeated BJP's JB Tubid by more than 26 thousand votes from Chaibasa seat. Hemant Soren was included in the cabinet and now the leaders included in Champai Soren's cabinet also include JMM's Mithilesh Kumar Thakur, Hafijul Hasan and Baby Devi, apart from Congress's Rameshwar Oraon, Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh. Governor CP Radhakrishnan administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers.

Hemant Soren was arrested on January 31

Earlier on February 2, 67-year-old Champai Soren was sworn in as the 12th Chief Minister of the state. Along with him, senior Congress leader Alamgir Alam and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Satyanand Bhokta took oath as ministers. JMM working president Hemant Soren was arrested by the ED on January 31, soon after resigning as chief minister.

How many MLAs of which party in Jharkhand?

The JMM-led alliance has 47 MLAs in the 81-member state assembly. Among them, there are 29 MLAs from JMM, 17 from Congress and one from RJD. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has 26 MLAs and the All Jharkhand Students Union Party (AJSU) has three MLAs. Apart from these, there is one MLA each from Nationalist Congress Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and two independent MLAs.