New Delhi: Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supremo Hemant Soren took oath as Jharkhand’s 14th chief minister in Ranchi on Thursday (November 28).
Soren led the INDIA alliance to victory in 56 seats of the 81-member Jharkhand assembly last week, retaining his government and defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA for the second consecutive time in the state.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by a host of prominent political leaders, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Jharkhand governor Santosh Kumar Gangwar administered the oath of office and secrecy to Soren, who is set to begin his fourth term as the chief minister of Jharkhand.
In view of the swearing-in-ceremony, schools in Ranchi were shut, the Hindustan Times reported.
Sever opposition leaders like NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Arvind Kejriwal, Uddhav Thackeray, Akhilesh Yadav, Mehbooba Mufti and Tejashwi Yadav were also in attendance.
Soren announced after his swearing-in that his government had taken five decisions, one of which was fulfilling the INDIA bloc’s pre-poll promise to increase the amount of support to eligible women under the Maiyya Samman scheme from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,500 per month.
The other decisions were to ‘expedite’ recruitment by the state’s Public Service and Staff Selection Commissions, to move to recover the “state’s dues of Rs 1.36 lakh crore from the Union government”, tap various sources to increase the state’s revenue and that a team comprising all parties and officials would “gather information on the condition of the tribals and natives of Jharkhand who have been living in Assam for years”.
Soren was jailed earlier this year in connection with an alleged money laundering case and was only able to secure a bail in June, with three months left to go for the Jharkhand polls.
