Ex-Jharkhand CM Champai Soren takes oath as minister in Hemant Soren govt

Former chief minister Champai Soren on Monday took oath as a minister in the Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand. Ten others will also take oath as ministers along with Champai Soren.

Champai had resigned from the post of CM on July 3, a day before JMM executive president Hemant Soren took oath as the 13th chief minister of Jharkhand on July 4.

Jharkhand Governor C P Radhakrishnan administered the oath of office and secrecy to Champai Soren at a function at Raj Bhavan in the presence of senior leaders of the JMM-led alliance and other government officials.


The new faces in the 12-member cabinet, which includes the chief minister, are Congress's Jamtara MLA Irfan Ansari, Mahagama MLA Deepika Pandey Singh and JMM's Latehar MLA Baidynath Ram.

Ram's name had been excluded at the last moment from the list of ministers in the previous Champai Soren cabinet, which he had termed as an "insult".

Those who retained their ministerial berths include Rameshwar Oraon and Banna Gupta of the Congress, besides JMM's Mithilesh Kumar Thakur, Hafizul Hasan, Dipak Birua and Bebi Devi and RJD's Satyanand Bhokta.

Earlier in the day, the Hemant Soren government won a vote of confidence in the assembly amid a walkout by opposition members.

Hemant Soren was released from jail on June 28 after the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to him in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam. He had resigned as the CM shortly before his arrest on January 31 by the Enforcement Directorate.