Jharkhand Assembly Elections 2024 | Hemant Soren takes oath as Jharkhand CM for 4th time

Patna: JMM leader Hemant Soren took oath as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in Ranchi on Thursday. He was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Santosh Gangwar at the Morabadi ground in the Jharkhand capital.

Incidentally, it was only Soren who took the oath today. Other probable ministers, who are likely to join the Cabinet, will be sworn in after the vote of confidence in the Assembly.

Flanked by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, 49-year-old Soren took the oath for the fourth time and called his government 'Abua Sarkar.'

'Abua' is a Santhali (tribal language) term that means "ours".

It was speculated that other members from the JMM, Congress and the RJD would join the government and take oath accordingly. However, ruling party sources said, “The alliance partners, particularly the Congress and the RJD, could not finalise the names of those to be inducted into the Cabinet. Hence, Hemant ji took the oath today while others will have to wait until the vote of confidence in the Assembly is over next month.”

Hemant led his alliance to win 56 out of 81 seats in the Assembly, making the trust vote a formality. But sources said the Congress was trying to extract its pound of flesh after its increased tally of 16 MLAs. Even the RJD, which contested six seats and won four, could not finalise who would represent the party in the Cabinet.

Fourth oath

Hemant was sworn in as CM for the first time in 2013 and continued in the post until December 2014. He became CM again in December 2019 but had to resign when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested him in an alleged land scam case on January 31 this year. After the Jharkhand High Court granted him bail on June 28, Hemant was sworn in as CM for the third time, replacing his confidant Champai Soren, who later defected to the BJP.

Hemant won from Barhait, while his wife Kalpana Soren romped home from the Gandey constituency.

Maharashtra Assembly poll 2024 results | Check constituency results here

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Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls took place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP went up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress tried to make their mark. Maha Yuti are currently comfortably poised to win. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faced a challenge after Hemant Soren's arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP, but look set to retain power with its I.N.D.I.A. allies. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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