Soren Jr stakes claim in J’khand

Jul 10, 2013 - ANAND S.T. DAS |

Age Correspondent

JMM leader Hemant Soren on Tuesday staked claim to form Jharkhand’s next government with the support of the Congress and the RJD, claiming to have the assured support of 43 MLAs, one more than the magic number of 42 needed for a simple majority.

Mr Soren, who was deputy chief minister during Jharkhand’s previous coalition government led by Arjun Munda of the BJP, met governor Syed Ahmed in the evening and submitted a list of 43 MLAs, including all the six independent legislators, along with the letters of support they purportedly wrote. Set to become chief minister and remain in the post till the present Assembly’s tenure ends in December 2014, Hemant Soren now waits for the governor’s invitation to form a JMM-Congress-RJD government.
“I have staked claim with the support of 43 MLAs for a popular, democratic government to be formed in Jharkhand. We will offer our best services for the progress of the state,” said Hemant Soren after meeting the governor. He was accompanied by his father and JMM patriarch Shibu Soren, himself a former CM of Jharkhand, Congress state president Sukhdeo Bhagat, several MLAs from the Congress and the RJD, and some of the Independent MLAs.
Earlier in the day, Hemant Soren was unanimously elected as leader of the new coalition of parties set to rule Jharkhand. After hectic efforts over the past three days, the JMM managed to ensure the support of enough MLAs to reach the magic figure for a simple majority in the state’s 82-member fractured Assembly. The JMM has 18 MLAs while the Congress and the RJD have 13 and 5 respectively. The main Opposition BJP and JVM have 18 and 11 MLAs respectively.
Tuesday’s development, coming nine days before President’s Rule in the state expires, cleared the decks for formation of the ninth government in the politically unstable state’s 12 years in existence. The BJP renewed its demand for fresh polls in Jharkhand and said it would observe a “day of shame” when Mr Soren would be sworn in.
The JVM also planned to observe the day as “black day”.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/241859" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-6c73ebe16cfeb4d8483490b3bdccec6f" value="form-6c73ebe16cfeb4d8483490b3bdccec6f" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80867964" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>